


A Year in the Life

by itchyfingers



Series: The It Ain't Over World [3]
Category: Michael Fassbender - Fandom
Genre: Alcoholism, Astrophysics, Blow Jobs, F/M, Graduate School, Love, New Relationship, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Romance, Sex, and some more sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 75,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Michael Fassbender sequel to the love triangle that was It Ain't Over</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. August 31, 2014

Michael set the final box of books on the table in Halla’s tiny new flat. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright here?”

Halla smiled. This was the fourth time he had asked that question since he had seen the studio flat she had leased. “I’ll be fine, you big worrier. Remember, I lived in Cambridge before.”

“But this place is tiny. Even for you, this is tiny.”

She shook her head as she placed the box of blankets on the bed. “I need someplace to eat and sleep and a stable wi-fi connection, and this has all of that. I’ll be spending most of my time at the observatory anyway. Remember, I’m just a lowly graduate student, not a big movie star. I don’t need much.”

Michael rubbed his hands together as he frowned. “If you want anything. Anything at all.”

“I’ll ring you. Seriously, I’ll be fine.” She stood on her tip toes and kissed him on his chin. “These are my old stomping grounds. It’s a bit of a homecoming for me.”

He turned in a circle, taking in the entirety of the flat with its plain white walls and sturdy but ugly furniture. It was completely devoid of personality and he felt like he was leaving her in a jail cell. “I’m taking you to the market and buying you food. I don’t want you going hungry.”

Halla giggled as she started putting books on the bookshelf. “If you’re this bad with me, I can just imagine how you’re going to get sending our kids off to university.”

She froze, her well-worn copy of Stephen Hawking’s  _A Brief History of Time_ in her hands, realizing the immensity of what she had said. She waited for Michael to say something.

Say  _anything_.

The silence stretched like taffy and she finally turned around to see him leaning against the table, silently laughing. “You freaked yourself out there, didn’t you, baby?”

“Oh, you  _jerk!_ ” She grabbed a pillow from the sofa and threw it at him. He snagged the pillow out of the air and walked across the room to her.

He tossed the pillow on her sofa before he stroked his thumb across her cheek, cupping her face with one hand. “It’s nice to know that you’re thinking about a future with me, even if it’s just in the deepest subconscious part of your brain.”

Her nose wrinkled and lines appeared across her forehead. “I’m not good at using my words and having big discussions about meaningful stuff. It’s easier to just kiss you or turn it into a joke or something.”

He smiled and rubbed his thumb against her cheek again. “I know. I had to take you to another country for you to let me tell you that I liked you.”

She put her hands on his waist, the leather of his belt rubbing against her palms, and slipped her thumbs under his tee so she could touch his skin. “I like you, Michael.”

He wrapped his arms around her, his hands clasped together at the small of her back, and pulled her closer so their stomachs were touching. “I figured that out.”

She leaned backward so she could see him better. “I even call you my boyfriend. Out loud and everything.”

He grinned. “That’s progress.”

“And I promise not to date anyone else while we’re apart.” Her eyes narrowed. “As long as you promise the same thing.”

He let go of her for long enough to cross his heart.

She nodded in acceptance. “So, like, we’re a real couple now.”

“Yes. Official with words and everything.” He bent down and kissed her, lingering as it struck him with new force that he would be leaving her here and that for the first time in almost three weeks he would be going to sleep without her tonight. He tilted his head, pressing his tongue to her lips and she opened to him. His nose brushed against her cheek as their mouths moved, Halla having had the same realization and not wanting to let him go.  She finally broke away and rested her head on his chest, tightening her arms around his waist.

Michael tucked her head under his chin. “You do realize that our kids could be like me.”

Halla stiffened momentarily in his arms before she responded. “Well, yes, that’s sort of the way DNA works.”

She felt his laugh in his chest as she heard it. “No, I mean, our kids might not go to university. And I wouldn’t make them if that wasn’t what they wanted. Would you be alright with that?”

“As long as they’re working towards their dreams, I’ll be happy.”

It was Michael’s turn to pull back so he could see her. “Really? Because you’re a genius. You’re happy about going back to school. That was never me.”

Halla smiled up at him, not wanting him to see the terror of failing, of slipping, of falling apart again that she was plastering over with a façade of pure excitement about getting her life back on track. “It’s not about going back to school; it’s about getting to go back to space. You must get excited stepping on a set for the first time.”

He nodded and pushed a loose lock of her hair back behind her ear so it wasn’t obscuring her face. “I do.”

“It’s the same thing. So, if our hypothetical children in some hypothetical future decide to not matriculate at a hypothetical university, I will be fine, as long as they are working towards some hypothetical goal.”

Michael’s grin got bigger the longer she talked. “That’s a lot of hypotheticals.”

Her cheeks turned pink at his teasing. “I just don’t want you to think I’m sitting here picking out baby names or something like that.”

“Michael Junior.”

Halla snorted. “Of course. How could it be anything else?  And if it’s a girl?”

“Michaela.”

She threw up her hands in surrender. “Right. Well now I definitely don’t have to think about baby names.”

“I’m just giving you more time to concentrate on invisible planets.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

He took her out to dinner and then to the market and filled the trolley until she started putting things back on the shelf, insisting that there wasn’t enough room in her flat for everything he was trying to purchase. When they got back to her studio, he helped her put away all the food and then refused to let her make the bed until she reassured him that it was a brand new mattress. She did have  _some_  limits. They made the small bed and then tumbled into it together, making love to each other with a slow and steady passion. It had been dark for hours by the time Michael got dressed to go. He gave her one last kiss and then pulled some folded papers from one of the boxes and handed them to her.

“I printed these out for you.”

She unfolded them and blinked back tears as she read through the schedule. “Thank you.”

“And I marked the meeting locations closest to your flat and to the observatory on the map on the last page. And if you need me, ring me. Day or night, baby. I’m here for you.”

She hung the papers on the front of the small fridge with a magnet advertising a local pizza restaurant and then wrapped her arms around Michael. “I love you,” she whispered.

Michael stopped breathing for a moment before he smiled. He had assumed he was going to be the first one to say it considering how reluctant she was to discuss her feelings, but that she had put herself forward like this, was vulnerable with him, made the first time she said those words all the sweeter. His arms spanned her back, one of his hands on her hip, the other on her shoulder. He tucked her head under his chin. “I love you, too.”

 


	2. Friday, 19 September, 2014

Michael opened the back door of the lecture hall and peeked inside before he slipped in and claimed a seat in the back row. When Halla told him that she was covering the lecture of one of the professors last night on the phone, he had been struck with an urge to watch her teach. A bit of poking around on Cambridge’s website had let him find where she would be lecturing, and she had said it was a huge class so he was fairly certain she wouldn’t even notice him. He pulled his cap lower and slouched down in his seat, idly tapping his fingers on the desk. The Ian Sackler lecture hall was mostly full of students, and he could hear laughing discussions of what to do over the upcoming weekend.

Halla walked in a door at the front of the lecture theatre though no one seemed to notice; they probably were expecting their professor. It wasn’t until she started writing her name on the board that she drew any attention. And then she got it plenty. He could hear muttered comments from the male students sitting in the row in front of him and all he could think was,  _you wish._

He rubbed his face and slouched lower, grinning at her complete cluelessness. He had asked her if she was nervous about teaching and she had laughed, saying it was a topic she could teach in her sleep so she would just put on her professor clothes and she would be fine. And here she was, every hot-for-teacher fantasy rolled into one tiny package. High heels, sheer stockings, knee length tight black skirt, and a tailored green blouse with sleeves that went down to right above her elbows were topped with her hair pulled back in a bun. She was even wearing glasses.  _Oh, baby girl, you really don’t have any idea how sexy you are, do you?_

She clipped the microphone to her collar and hooked the battery pack to her skirt. “This is Structure and Evolution of Stars. Dr. Stein is at a conference this weekend. I’m Halla Jónsdóttir and I’m going to be covering the lecture today. We’re going to be covering hydrogen burning today, and you will want to memorize these equations if you haven’t already.”

A student’s hand shot up.

“Yes?”

“Are you related to the Jónsdóttir that found the anomaly?” the young man asked.

“I am that Jónsdóttir.” A murmur rippled through the room as students looked at each other in surprise and many of them sat up straighter.

“But you’re…”

Even from the back of the lecture hall, Michael could see her eyebrow arch as she looked at the student over the rim of her glasses. “I’m what?”

“Uhhh.” He shrunk in his seat. “You just look very young.”

“Don’t worry; I’m older than I look.”

Another hand shot up and she nodded at the young woman. “Have you figured out what’s causing it yet?”

“No. We’re getting data in from multiple instruments so we have a lot of information to look at. People from all over the world are looking at it, in fact.”

“If you need any help? Like a research assistant?” the young woman continued.

“I don’t have funding to hire research assistants. But if you’re interested in working for a line on your CV, come talk to me after class. Now, to hydrogen burning.”

Michael watched as equation after equation flowed onto the chalkboard without her looking at notes. Students scrambled to keep up with the math she was explaining, pens flying over paper. When the chalkboard was full, she stepped back and looked at it. “Now, what the fuck does all that mean?”

The students started laughing.

“Well, let’s start at the beginning.” She went back to the first equation and talked the students through it, clarifying points of concern. She switched colors of chalk and started adding arrows so students could follow the pathway of a specific atom of hydrogen through the process, and added different colors for each element involved so that students could see where they entered the process and what they changed into by the time the helium was burning at the end. He actually understood what was going on. Not that he could have done the maths behind it or explained it to anyone else, but it made sense.

“Alright. That’s it for today. Dr. Stein will be back on Monday. Have a good weekend.”

Michael sipped his cold coffee as he watched students pack up and start to leave. A good number made their way down to the lecture floor and gathered in a clump as she finished erasing the boards. She turned around and stepped back as she saw the group of students. “What can I do for all of you?”

“About being a research assistant?”

“Oh, right. If you’re interested, send me an email with your CV, a writing sample, and a letter explaining how working on this project will help with your career goals. Say by next Friday?”

Nodding heads and soft words of thanks met her answer and the students dispersed as she unhooked the mic and belt pack. She was gathering up her things when she heard birds twittering. She looked up at the ceiling, wondering how birds would have gotten in here. She didn’t see anything and the twittering started up again.

Her eyes narrowed as she recognized the birdcall. Her eyes scanned over the students still in the seats waiting for the next class to start and paused on Michael’s face and his crooked grin. He winked at her and she shook her head and went back to placing the final few things in her bag. She left by the door she had come in, pausing in the open door long enough to meet his eyes and gesture with her head for him to follow her.

She was halfway down the hall by the time he caught up. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I just thought I’d come sit in on a lecture. See you in your natural habitat.”

She slipped her hand into his. There was no one in this hallway to see them. “And?”

“You were brilliant. Even  _I_  understood what you were talking about by the end.”

She smiled, pleased that he thought she was good at what she did. “Well hopefully the actual students feel that way as well.”

“Well, I don’t know how they felt about your teaching, but they definitely responded well to you.”

She looked up at him as they walked, her heels clicking on the hard flooring. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the guy in front of me said, ‘I’d like to ask  _her_  for extra credit.’”

Halla stopped and stared up at him, her mouth agape. “He did not.”

Michael nodded. “You look damn sexy like this, baby.”

“How is this sexy? I am covered from my neck to my toes! My hair is in a bun. I’m even wearing glasses.”

“I’m not even one of your students and I want to come visit you in your office and tell you I would do  _anything_  to pass your class. Absolutely anything.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, and as she looked at him over the edge of her glasses, he knew how that student had felt. “Well, unfortunately, Mr. Fassbender, I don’t have an office.”

Unlike that student though, he wasn’t scared of her. “That’s a pity because I really would like to pass this class.”

Halla stared at him for a few seconds before she started walking again and Michael followed her, disappointed that his flirtation had been rejected.  _Maybe when they got back to her flat,_  he hoped, as she pulled open the door to the handicapped accessible bathroom. She looked at him sternly. “You have five minutes to make your case, Mr. Fassbender.”

He grinned and cocked his head. “Challenge accepted.”

She locked the door and flipped on the light as he fell to his knees in front of her. His hands closed around her ankles and he began to slide them up her legs as the fluorescent lights buzzed to life. Halla hung her bag on the hook on the back of the door and pulled off his cap. She tossed it on the counter and then sank her fingers into his hair, scratching her nails across his scalp as he pulled up her skirt.

“Oh, I was hoping you were wearing stockings,” he said happily as her thighs were exposed by the retreating skirt. He kissed her mound through her knickers before he hooked his fingers in the waistband and started pulling them down.

“This kind is supposed to stay up without suspenders,” she started to say, but stopped as he kissed her newly exposed skin, flicking his tongue out to taste her. He nudged her feet and helped her step out of her knickers before he shoved them in his back pocket and then began kissing her again, working his way downward. She spread her legs wider open for him and he grabbed one and hooked it over his shoulder as he kissed and licked over the surface of her folds, teasing the slit with the tip of his tongue but never dipping inside.

“You’re on the clock, Mr. Fassbender,” she reminded him as she pressed her hips upward.

He looked up at her from between her legs, his eyes a dark and feral blue as his thumbs pressed open her damp folds and he licked her firmly from her pussy to her clit. The flat of his tongue rubbed against her clit a few more times before he sucked it into his mouth. This wasn’t going to be the slow feast on a lazy Sunday afternoon they were both used to enjoying. He was going to bring her to the edge and shatter her as fast as he could. If she wanted him on the clock, he would show her exactly how fast he could perform.

He kept the tip of his tongue lapping against her clit as he looked up and shoved two fingers between her parted lips. “Suck,” he ordered before he sucked her clit through his teeth and back into his mouth. He traced little circles around it, toying with the delicate nub until he could feel her pulse in it. She closed her mouth around his fingers and did as he had commanded. Her tongue was warm and wet against his skin and she ran her tongue around each one before she pressed it between them. He was almost reluctant to pull them from her sweet suction and she whined like a disappointed child until he pressed them inside her and scissored them open, spreading her around them.

Halla grabbed the handrail, holding on as Michael sent all the blood from her brain cascading down to pool in her stomach. She closed her eyes against the harsh fluorescent light as he began to work his fingers in and out of her at a fast pace. She almost regretted having reminded him he was on the clock because her body was failing in its attempt to keep up with the demands he was putting on it. Everything was too much, too fast, too sweet and hot, bordering on the knife’s edge of pain as he jumpstarted her from nothing to trembling in a few scorching seconds. She pressed down on the hand rail, her arms going rigid as they held her weight so she could grind her hips against his face.

Michael grabbed her arse with his free hand, his nails scoring crescents into the pale skin as he fought to hold her still. He pressed his tongue harder against her clit and her cry echoed back to him from the tiled walls. He could feel her wetness dripping down his fingers as he pumped them in and out of her. He was waiting for the twitch in her thigh which would tell him that she was close to coming. He’d had his face buried in her sweet little pussy enough to know exactly which signs to look for and the heel of her shoe dug into his back as her leg spasmed. There it was. The sign he was looking for.  He adjusted his hold on her bum so he could rub his pinky through the wetness slicking her skin. He skimmed it over the skin beneath her pussy until he felt the tightly gathered ring he was searching for. He let his finger brush against it, feather light. He had never done this with her and he had no idea how she would react.

He was grateful for the extra layer of protection afforded by his leather jacket as the point of her heel scraped down his back. “Michael?” She sounded lost and confused.

He moaned against her clit and hooked his fingers inside her, finding her g-spot and rubbing it before he let his pinky brush against her a little harder, but still just skimming over the skin. She whimpered but didn’t pull away as he continued licking and fingering her. His tongue thrummed faster and she started to tremble, her leg hooking into him and pulling her body rigid. She called his name again, this time resonating with the familiar sound of her losing control as he pressed his pinky gently against her and then slightly, just the tip, inside. The unfamiliar sensation ripped through her, burning her to ash and sending up sparks as nerves she didn’t even know she had flared to life.

Her body went taut and still and he licked her tenderly through the waves crashing over her, watching as she held her breath for what felt like forever as she clenched around his fingers. She finally gasped for air and then he grabbed her around the waist as she went limp. He helped her to her feet and kept both hands on her hips until she was standing under her own power again.

“Well,” she said, her breath still uneven, “that was new and different.”

“Bad?” he replied, still kneeling on the floor.

She shook her head. “Just… unexpected.” He could see the blush scaling her cheeks, even over the light pink flush she had already gained. “You definitely pass the class, Mr. Fassbender.” She giggled and he gave her a crooked grin.

“I think I had thirty seconds to spare, too.” He pushed himself to his feet and gathered her in her arms, his hands resting on her still bare bum. “Of course, I wouldn’t mind earning a little extra credit.”

She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down into a kiss, tasting herself on his lips and tongue. “Later. Now hand over my knickers.”

Ten minutes later they were standing in the car park. Halla stared at his motorcycle. “I can’t get on that.”

“Why not? You have before.”

“Look at what I am wearing.”

His smile had a definite tinge of smirk as he looked her up and down. “And?”

“I’ll have to hitch my skirt up to my hips. The tops of my stockings are going to show, not to mention my arse.”

“It will be sexy.”

“Why don’t I drive and you sit behind me and then I won’t be mooning everyone?”

“Because you will steer us into a tree.” He shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her. “Wrap this around yourself and tuck the sleeves under and you’ll be fine.”

He straddled the cycle and she climbed on behind him, her skirt rising dangerously high. The lace at the top of her stockings was visible as well as a couple inches of thigh before she got the jacket wrapped around her legs. Michael handed her the helmet he was holding and as she grabbed it, she noticed a group of her students about fifteen meters away staring slack jawed at her and Michael. She waved and pulled the helmet on as Michael fastened his.  _Oh well, they were going to discover the real me sooner or later._ She checked the buckle under her chin and wrapped her arms around Michael’s waist. He revved the engine and, with one hand over hers, pulled out of the car park and onto the road. It would be back to her flat so she could change and pack a few things, and then back on the bike for a lovely ride to London, the sky above almost as blue as Michael’s eyes.

 


	3. 27 September 2014

Michael watches Halla in confusion. She’s lying on the sofa, her laptop in front of her, making the most outlandish faces. With her ear buds in he can’t even tell what she is listening to so he tosses one of her hair ties – there always seems to be one within arm’s reach – at her to gain her attention.

She pulls out one of her ear buds. “What?”

“What are you doing?”

She looks at her screen and back to him. “Learning about snakes.”

“Why are you doing that thing with your face?”

Her hand flies to her cheek. “I wasn’t doing anything with my face.”

He scratches his chin as he looks at her. Her eyes are a little too wide open and she can’t maintain eye contact. “You looked like you were trying to unhinge your jaw.”

“I was just imitating the snakes. It’s amazing. This thing can swallow stuff bigger than his head.”

While that explains the faces he can still tell that something’s odd here. Biology has never been her subject. “Why the sudden interest in snakes? Did you find some on the moon?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” She sticks her ear bud back in and goes back to her videos and he goes back to reading his  _Assassin’s Creed_  novel. When he looks up a few minutes later she is making faces again. He watches her with a smile. She is unlike anything he has ever known and he still doesn’t understand what’s going on in her brain half of the time. There’s something going on with her body though, a tension in the way she is holding herself instead of her normal relaxed sprawl that means she’s up to something. He’ll figure it out sooner or later though. That’s what new relationships are always like; learning to speak each other’s body language. He shakes his head and goes into the kitchen to get something to eat. When he comes back out, he passes behind the sofa to hand her a plate and sees what she was looking at. His head slowly tilts to the side as he watches the video.

“That’s not a snake.”

Her head snaps up as she alt-tabs to a video of a python swallowing a whole crocodile.

He puts the plate on the end table and picks up her laptop. He flips back to the screen she had been on and watches the porn for a few seconds before he looks at her. “Is there something I can help you with, baby?”

She looks from him to the video of the woman enthusiastically slurping down a cock and back to him. Her chin starts to quiver and he closes the laptop and drops it on the sofa and pulls her to her feet. “What’s going on here?” He brushes the pad of his thumb against her chin.

She covers her face with her hands for a few moments before she drags her hands down so her eyes are visible, her fingers steepling around her nose. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes before she starts talking. “I have seen many pen… a lot?  a lot of penises? Which makes me sound less like a slut? More than two. I have seen more than two penises in my life and yours is definitely statistically significantly larger than the mean. Like, p-value less than .001.” She giggles. “Your penis has a pee value.”

He looks at her in confusion and she stops laughing and clears her throat. “Right. No statistics jokes. Um, what I am trying to say is that your penis is large. Very large. Prodigious even.” He’s figured out a little bit about her body language. The more nervous she is, the more she talks with her hands. Right now she is practically flailing. “You have a prodigious penis. And I am scared that I’m going to hurt it because my mouth is not very large and you are always very enthusiastic about going down on me and very good at it and I would like to return the flavor,” she snorts and slaps her hand over her mouth as she is giggling again, “I said flavor.”

Michael scratches his cheek as his smile broadens.  She doesn’t get giggly like this often, but when she does it is priceless.

“I would like to return the  _favor_  but I’m scared I’m going to be bad at it and hurt you and I don’t want that.”

The pieces are falling into place and he recognizes the image the puzzle is forming. “So the snake videos were you trying to learn how to unhinge your jaw.”

She blushes her signature shade of pink and scratches behind her ear while staring at her feet. “Yes,” she mutters.

He coughs to clear his throat and to keep from laughing. “Because in your head my penis is a crocodile.”

She giggles. “Sort of.”

He can’t help it and the laughter shakes his shoulders. “You do realize that humans can’t actually unhinge their jaw like pythons, right? Their skulls are four separate parts.”

She looks up at him and there is actual disappointment in her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes. I love snakes. I had one as a pet when I was younger.”

Her shoulders slump as she sighs. “Oh.” Her frown is almost a pout.

“I think this is the most fucking adorable thing you’ve ever done though.” He trails his finger over the swell of her bottom lip.

She blinks a few times before she focuses on him again. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Can I tell you something though?”

She nods and gnaws at her lip where his finger has just been.

“Every cock is different. Just feel free to play with it and figure out what I like. Ask me what I like. I’ll tell you. Put it in your mouth, don’t put it in your mouth, lick it, don’t lick it, whatever. I think actually touching the penis in question will help you more than all the snake videos in the world.”

She stares at him so long that he’s starting to think something is seriously wrong before she cries, “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done this?”

Startled by the almost hysterical edge to her voice he has to force himself to keep stroking her back. “No.”

“A long time. Very long.” Her hand is moving with each syllable, underscoring the immensity of the time she is talking about. A fiery ball of prideful joy ignites in his stomach at the news that she never gave Henry a blowjob. It had been impossible to miss that she never went down on him and he had never known if it was something she just didn’t enjoy or if it was him that she found off-putting. “And do you know how long it’s been since I did this sober?”

“Even longer?” he ventures.

“Forever!” she wails. She bangs her head against his chest and her next words are muffled as she speaks into his sternum. “I don’t want to do it wrong.”

Her stifled words bring back so many memories of the care she takes with everything she considers important, the painstaking notes on her works, the attention to the most minute detail of his schedule when she had been his assistant, the way she still asks for permission to turn on the telly if he’s in the room so she won’t disturb him. He tightens his arms around her and kisses the top of her head. “My little perfectionist. Remember what I told you that night we went to Leith Hill?”

She sniffs and rubs her eyes. “That you don’t have to be perfect to be perfect for someone.”

“Yes. I don’t expect you to swallow my cock like a porn star. You, my love, are perfect just the way you are.”

She takes a few deep breaths as he runs his hands and up and down her back and then pulls at the fly of his jeans and pops open the first button. “Do you have some time right now?”

“I do.”

“Would you mind kind of just making out with me until I calm down a bit?”

He doesn’t speak, just wraps his hand around the back of her neck and pulls her even closer. He bends down so he’s almost kissing her, but not quite, choosing instead to stare into her eyes as his breath strokes her lips. Her eyes are fixed on his, her pupils dilating as her lips part, tilting her face up so she’s closer to his mouth. She licks her lips, drops her eyes to his mouth, and then looks back up at him. “I love you, Michael,” she whispers against his lips.

“I love you, too, my Halla.” His lips move over hers as he speaks the words and she tastes him, searching out and finding the way they flavor his kisses. Her arms steal around his neck and she stands up on her tip toes, wanting to bring them as close as possible to each other. His hands continue their leisurely exploration over her back, delving under her shirt and rubbing across her soft skin. Their kisses continue, soft and slow and Halla grabs the neck of his tee and starts to pull at it. Michael helps her pull off his shirt and takes hers off of her as well. He tosses the garments to the side as she kisses his chest, her hands starting at his shoulders and slowly working their way down over his stomach, followed by a trail of wet kisses that sometimes turn into bites. She takes a while to appreciate the work he’s been doing getting in shape for his next role by tracing each muscle in his stomach with the tip of her tongue. The rough sound of his breathing is the only noise in the room until she pulls at his fly and the buttons pop open. She slides her hand inside the loosened denim and rubs him through his pants. He’s already hardening and he lets out a barely controlled moan at her touch.

She smiles, taking a bit more confidence from his reaction and sits back down on the sofa, pulling down his jeans. She traces the line of him with a sparkling fingernail through the cotton of his pants before leaning forward and traversing the same path with her breath, not quite touching him. He wraps her hair around his fingers as she finally kisses the growing bulge in his pants, nuzzling against him, against  _it_  and inhaling deeply.

It is the concentrated aroma of him that finally settles her nerves completely, the musk that forms the gentle periphery of her time with him, the mornings she wakes draped over him, the kisses while she makes him watch  _Star Trek_  or he makes her watch all the great movies she’s never seen, the last scent before she falls asleep at night, the fragrance that she’s subconsciously seeking out when she wears the jumper she’s stolen from him.

She hooks her fingers into waistband over both of his hips and starts to pull them down his legs and Michael pulls out the band in the front so it doesn’t drag over his cock. “Hello, there,” she says as it comes into view. She touches the tip and then brings her finger to her mouth and wets it slowly and then strokes her moistened finger over the head, watching mesmerized as it continues to harden and rise to her hand. She licks her lips and looks up at him to find his eyes fixed on her intently. Her cheeks heat and she leans forward and kisses his cock and lets her tongue lap at it. The hiss of his indrawn breath spurs her on and she licks down the shaft as it hardens against her tongue. She cups his testicles, feels them instinctively retract and then start to relax back into her palm as she rolls them in her hand before she kisses the base of his shaft and then the dark thatch of curls that surround it.

She licks her lips again before she starts her way back up, moving to the other side of his shaft. He’s almost fully erect and the foreskin has retreated enough for her to flick her tongue into the slit at the top, tasting to see if he has anything for her yet. He doesn’t and she swirls her tongue around the head of his cock, finding that concentration of nerves on the bottom that sends his hips bucking forward. She smiles up at him and does it again before she suckles at the head. He uses both hands to pull her hair back – of course, she would pick today to wear it down – and secure it at the base of her neck so he can watch as she slowly takes the head of his cock into her mouth.

She is tentative at first, sliding her mouth back up and changing the angle of her head before she slides her lips down the shaft again. Her tongue is flush against the bottom of the shaft, though, and as it glides against him, he groans deep in his chest. The wet warmth wraps around him and hugs, drawing forth another moan as she sucks on her way back up. She goes back to licking, her tongue in warm rough circles over the skin and then she takes him back into her mouth. She switches back and forth, her tongue all over his cock, licking and teasing, and then sucking on the head. He’s fully erect by now, and she can feel his pulse every time she licks at the thick vein running the length of his shaft.

Halla takes a deep breath and then opens her mouth, taking in the head of his cock while she wraps her fingers around his shaft for the first time in this adventure. He watches her head bob up and down a few times and then she pauses, changes the angle and tries again.  He slips deeper into her mouth and she moans softly, the sound vibrating through his cock and he moans in response. His hand tightens on her hair and her eyes flutter closed as her hand twists around his shaft. His cock nudges against the back of her mouth and she gags the smallest amount before she continues the movement of her lips up and down his shaft. Her hand follows her mouth and brings back down the wetness she leaves behind, using it to slick its own movements over his cock.

“Just a bit softer, baby,” he murmurs.

She loosens her grip and he moans as her hand slides easier. “Just like that. You are fucking perfect, Halla.”

She glances up and he can see the smile in her eyes even if her mouth is otherwise occupied. He learns a little bit more of her body language in that moment. She needs to be told she’s doing alright, that her efforts are good enough. His little glitter-coated stick of dynamite may trust in her brain, but she does not believe that her body is good enough. He cups her head with his other hand, watching the look of blissful contentment on her face as she takes him into her mouth. The worry lines that had creased her forehead while they were talking are completely gone.

“Absolutely perfect, baby.”

The time for epiphanies is quickly evaporating into the distant past as she hollows her cheeks around him, sucking him deeper, her hand starting to stroke him faster. His cock throbs against her tongue. She holds just the head in her mouth and repeatedly rubs the flat of her tongue against his most sensitive spot as her hand continues its movement over his shaft. He groans, his head falling back as the tension coiling in his groin starts to become impossible to control. With the next flick of her tongue, he bucks forward helplessly and she grabs his hip, holding him in place with her fingers digging into his muscled skin.

“Fuck, Halla,” he grunts as his hips twitch again. His entire being has been drawn taut and concentrated down to the inches she is touching. His muscles are trembling under her hand and he has hardened and thickened in her mouth even more in the last few seconds. She strokes him faster and looks up at him. “I’m gonna come, baby.” The words are a warning but he sees the smile in her eyes and her hand tightens on his hip. She starts sucking his cock again, the wet slide of her mouth up and down those first few inches being joined by her hand.

She scratches her nails down his thigh as she looks up at him again and then she drops her hand from his leg and bats her lashes. His hands tighten on her head as he loses his tenuous grasp on the fraying remnants of his self-control. He thrusts forward, her fingers wrapped around his cock keeping her from gagging on him as he fucks her mouth with almost no finesse. Her mouth is hot and wet and tight, but it is the look in her eyes, the adoration he sees there that finally sparks the explosion that has him crying her name, every nerve in his body on fire, his head thrown back and his eyes screwed shut as sight is sacrificed on the bonfire that she has conjured in his body with the magic of her mouth.

She continues to suck, swallowing with him still in her mouth, making sure he has paid every drop he has to give. Every brush of her tongue against his cock makes his body shake and when she finally lets go and his cock drops from her mouth it is a bitter relief. His hands close on her face and he pulls her gently to her feet and kisses her before he wraps his arms around her and holds her against his heaving chest.

“A*, baby. Head of the class.”


	4. 17 October 2014

Halla paced back and forth under the overhang that covered the observatory walkway. Rain pounded down, splashing up to dampen her boots and cold air battered at her heated cheeks. She breathed in and out, deep breaths that she counted and held and exhaled slowly through pursed lips, trying to calm her fraying nerves. She forced her fingers to uncurl one by one, her palm breaking out in stabbing pain as blood rushed back into the blood-starved skin. Finally, when she thought she could talk without crying, she rang Michael.

“Hello, baby. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until you got back to the city tonight.”

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Why?” She could hear the grin in his voice. “You itching to bunk off and come play?”

“I was wondering if you could come get me.”

“Can’t face another ride on the train? It’s only been seven weeks.”

“It’s not the train.” She chewed on the cuff of her jacket as she tried to get up the nerve to say what she had called about.

“Halla, what’s going on?”

“I need you to come to the observatory. I need you to come in and just be visible for a few minutes.”

“Be visible?”

She stopped pacing and stared at the mud splattered across her shoes. “I need someone to see that I have a boyfriend.”

There was a long silence before he replied. “Baby, is someone harassing you?”

“Can you please do this? Just come hang out for ten minutes and then take me home?”

“I’ll be right there. Are you safe?”

“Yeah. I just really could use the backup.”

“Are you going to be okay until I get there?”

“I’m going to go to a meeting now and then I’ll be back at the observatory until you get here.”

“I’ll see you soon. If you need me between now and then, just ring me.”

The sound of his car door shutting and the engine starting could be heard in the background. “Thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

Halla was deep in concentration, her earbuds in, as she stared at the model rotating on her laptop. She’d been changing parameters, trying to get something that remotely resembled the orbital paths that would generate the data they had observed. Everyone was fairly certain that there was an actual new planet involved. No one could generate a solution that made any sense at all for why it was acting the way it was. She’d dropped out all the non-regular data and made an orbit based solely on the patterned observations. Now, she was looking for some sort of regularity in the irregularity and failing miserably.

It took her a few seconds to realize Michael was peering over the wall of her cubicle. Her carrel was closest to the door so she got used to people looking in and had learned to ignore it. Michael started to say something but she held up a single finger and he stopped. She bit her bottom lip so hard it went white, almost as drained of blood as her face. She was normally pale, but she had so little color she resembled a piece of carved alabaster. She had no sparkle except for the tiny gold star on her ever-present necklace, and there was nothing pink about her. His black jumper was huge over a white tee and jeans. Even her hair was flat, pulled back into a tight tail and tied off with a simple black elastic. She finally opened her eyes and then he saw pink. She’d obviously cried sometime earlier today. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the slight puffiness about her eyes, but it stood out to him like red to a bull. So did the half a dozen mostly empty beer bottles littering her desk. The smell of cheap beer filled the air around them.

“Michael! What are you doing here?”

She would never win an Oscar, but it was passable. “I thought I’d come up and surprise you. Get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at where you make the magic happen.”

She smiled up at him in gratitude. “Well, let me finish this up and I will give you the tuppence tour.” She saved the file she was working on and started shutting down her laptop. “Elsie, you in here?”

“What’s up?” Michael looked across the room to where the woman’s voice had come from. “I’m taking off for the day and I’ve got the next hour and a half on the computer booked. You want the rest of my time?”

“Remind me to tongue kiss you later.”

Halla’s laughter almost sounded natural to him. “Will do, sweetie. Hey, stand up and say hi to Michael. I’m not going to fight my way back to your jungle.”

Michael saw a tall ginger pop up over the maze of cubicles in the back corner of the room. She was situated by a window and there were plants all around her corner. She waved at him. “Hi, I’m Elsie.”

“Michael.”

“You look a lot like Michael Fassbender.”

“That’s because I am.”

Elsie’s smile faded and several more heads slowly emerged over the walls. “Oh. Right then. Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

Halla stood up and saw the surprised and awed looks on the faces of her peers. “Everybody, Michael. Michael, everybody.” There were some halfhearted waves and mumbled greetings from her fellow students and Michael gave them all a red carpet wave. “Let me show you around.”

She led him through the maze of cubicles, most of which were occupied by graduate students in various attitudes of study and out into the hall where she grabbed his hand. Other than the proliferation of space themed decorations, it looked like a regular office building. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered, and then took him into the room across the hall. “This is the graduate student conference room/lounge/library/kitchen area.”

Bookshelves covered one wall and a large table surrounded by chairs took up the center of the room. Some old sofas and chairs were gathered at the end of the room by the windows. A man was stretched out on one of the sofas with a stack of articles resting on his stomach. “Sorry, Kyle. Didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just showing my boyfriend around.”

The man looked from Halla to Michael and stood and walked over to them with the air of an animal that has just scented a rival. “Kyle, this is my boyfriend, Michael Fassbender. Michael, this is Kyle Bradshaw, the star of the graduate program.”

Michael looked up to meet Kyle’s challenging gaze. The man had a few inches on him, though he had a leaner build. Michael’s eyes narrowed slightly as Kyle gripped his hand with unnecessary force. “So you’re the reason our little Halla won’t go to dinner with me when I ask.”

“I’m sure she has her own reasons for not going to dinner with you. I’m just lucky to be one of them.” He dropped Kyle’s hand.

“I’m just glad I can be here for her as a colleague. She needs someone to talk to who can understand her work.”

Michael smirked. This man really needed to learn some finesse. “I thought the whole point of her being back here was that no one understands what she found. Not even you.”

Kyle swallowed, the only sign that he recognized the insult. “Well, I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Yes, I’m sure she will. It was nice meeting you.” Michael’s smile was coolly dismissive.

“Bye Kyle,” Halla called over her shoulder as she left with Michael.

“Do you want me to punch him for you?” Michael muttered.

She gripped his hand a little tighter. “No. Hopefully that was sufficient.”

Michael stopped in the middle of the empty hall. “Seriously, Halla, what the hell has been going on here? What’s with the beer bottles on your desk?”

“Later.” She tugged at his hand and he started walking again, though the arch of his eyebrow promised they were not done with this conversation. “There’s one more person that I want you to meet.”

They walked down a long non-descript hall way. Each door had a name placard on it. Several of the doors were cracked open a few inches but many of them were open all the way. “These are the faculty offices.” She knocked on one of the doors that was open. “Dr. Oliver?”

The middle-aged man sitting at his desk looked up for his computer. “Yes, Halla?” His eyes darted from her face to Michael’s and his eyes widened slightly. “I ran that idea you had through the program and it’s not panning out. Thank you for the suggestion, though.”

“Ah, yes. Well, that’s what science is about, right? Ruling out the impossibilities until all that’s left…” He tapered off as his eyes flicked back to Michael.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce my boyfriend. How rude of me. Dr. Oliver, this is Michael Fassbender. But then you probably recognized him.”

The man cleared his throat and wiped his hand over his hair, smoothing down the greasy strands. “Uh, I did. Yes. Huge fan of your work. I thought  _12 Years_ was phenomenal.”

“Well, thank you. It’s always nice to meet a fan.”

Halla looked up at Michael and smiled sweetly. She never smiled sweetly. “Yes, I’ve heard Dr. Oliver speak very highly of your work in  _Shame_. He thought you must have had a lot of fun filming that.” Her perfectly shaped eyebrow lifted.

Michael turned back to Dr. Oliver. “Fun?”

“Well, you know, all those sex scenes…beautiful women…”

He slid his arm around Halla’s shoulders and pulled her a bit closer to him and away from the man whose eyes were starting to bulge in their sockets. “I think you missed the entire point of that film.”

“I’ll see you Monday, Dr. Oliver.”

They were half way back down the hall when Michael muttered, “You’re going to explain all this later.”

“We’re almost done. I just need to check in with Nathan before I leave.”

“Who’s Nathan?”

“Dr. Stein. He’s the head of the observatory. He’s the one who brought me back.”

“Ah.”

She stopped at a closed door and knocked. There was no answer and she shrugged. “I actually wanted you to meet him for good reasons. I think you’d like each other. He got into physics from being a fan of Formula One. All the acceleration and aerodynamics and turns. Of course, the fact that he’s sarcastic and Irish might help as well.” She shrugged. “Let me go grab my laptop and we’ll go.”

He followed her to her cubicle where she shoved her laptop in her backpack and put on her jacket. Michael picked up the beer bottles but she grabbed him around the wrist. “Leave them,” she whispered.

He looked down at her white knuckles. “Are these yours?”

“No, but just leave them. Please.”

He set them back on her desk and she let go of his wrist. “Let’s just go.” She slung her backpack over one shoulder and took his hand as they left the graduate carrels and walked out to his car. They ran through the car park in the pouring rain and Halla climbed in the front seat and tossed her bag in the back seat. Her head fell back against the head rest as she closed her eyes.

“Buckle up, little girl.”

She clicked the safety belt into place and the engine purred to life. The whirr of the wheels against the rain slicked road provided a soothing backdrop of noise. Michael was silent next to her as they drove and all too quickly the car came to a stop.

“Okay, spill.”

She opened her eyes to find them in an empty car park, the swings blowing in the squalling rain as water poured down the abandoned slide. “Here?”

He undid his seat belt and turned to face her. “You’re not taking whatever this is home with you. We’re getting it out now. What the fuck has been happening, Halla?”

She stared sightless through the trails of water sluicing down the windscreen. “It’s been a rough seven weeks,” she whispered.

“Why haven’t you said something before now?” He picked up her hand and rubbed it between his, trying to get some warmth back into her chilly fingers. “Before you’re in tears?”

“Oh, I’ve been in tears before this. It just got to be too much today.”

“What did?” He tipped her chin so she was looking at him. “I’ll go back there and punch whoever needs to be punched.”

Halla almost smiled at the earnest look on his face. “You’re not going to punch anyone.”

“Maybe slash a few tires?” he offered.

“You so desperately want to be a bad boy, don’t you?”

He unclicked her seat belt and pushed his seat all the way back. “Come here.”

She struggled out of her coat and then crawled into his lap. He ran his fingers over her damp hair and pulled it back from her face before he wrapped his arms around her. “Tell me in your own time. Right now I’m just going to hold you.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes and then, almost imperceptibly, her shoulders began to tremble. “That’s right, just let it out,” he murmured against her hair and her body shook as a sob tore its way from her throat.

“It’s just not  _fair_!” Her scream echoed in the car. “I mean, some of it I can totally understand, but the rest of it is just shit.”

He stroked her back slowly, waiting for her story to unfold. It took her a while to start talking again and then her words came out in a torrent. “So when Dr. Stein brought me back, apparently he made the decision unilaterally and tapped into some pots of money that other people wanted to use for their own projects so I could have funding for this year since it was a late decision and then next year I would have more normal funding sources. So people are pissed at me about not having a say in whether or not I was admitted to the program and about the money.”

“The students are mad at you about that?”

“No, some of the faculty.” She sighed and rubbed at the tears on her face. “Most of the faculty was there when I was here previously and there was quite a fight at the time about what to do with me. Dr. Stein, who is now the head, led the ‘put her in rehab and have her take a year sabbatical to prove she’s sober and let her come back’ camp. His partner is a recovering alcoholic, so he has some sympathy for my situation. But there were several members of the faculty who were of the opinion that I was a waste of time and resources and had squandered my opportunity, especially after what I did.”

Michael was trying to catch up. She had never really talked about her time at Cambridge and what had led to her leaving, besides her worsening alcoholism. “You mean being drunk?”

“No. The part where I…,” her mouth dropped, “I never told you this part. I told Henry.” She closed her eyes. “I had made a string of increasingly bad mistakes as my drinking got worse but the final straw was that I accidentally erased an incredibly important data set. It was months of work down the drain. The department head was furious with me and I,” she sighed and covered her face with her hands, slumping over in his lap, “I offered to be his sex toy if he wouldn’t expel me from the program.”

“Shit, baby.” His hand stilled on her back.

“I know; it was one of the lowest moments of my life. I thought it was my rock bottom, but that would happen a few years later.” She scrubbed her face with her hands, attempting to shove back those memories to the recesses of her mind.

“No, I mean I never would have done that ‘I’ll do anything to pass your class’ routine when I crashed your lecture if I had known.”

“Oh.” She laughed past the pain in her chest. “I didn’t even make the connection until a few days later. There’s such a huge difference between you flirting and me being desperate that it didn’t even dawn on me until a few days later.”

“So, okay, you’ve got faculty pissed off because they think you’re getting special treatment, and because they’re hanging on to a grudge from when you were here earlier.”

She nodded. “And I  _did_  get special treatment, so I can understand them being upset about it, but then someone told the other graduate students about my past, and several of them were already pissed off at me because I’ve upset the hierarchy–,”

He had no idea what she was talking about. He started to realize that for as much as she talked about her work, she almost never spoke about what was going on at work. He was getting the feeling that it was much like being on a set with all the personality clashes and time conflicts. “The hierarchy?”

“Yeah, like you think you’re the leading man in a film, and then you get to set and find out they’ve hired like Daniel Day-Lewis or something and given him your part and now you’ve been relegated to this bit role in the background.”

“So you’re Daniel Day-Lewis.” He had no idea that graduate school politics were this intense.

“Right. Like, Dr. Stein has been bumping my research to the top of the queue for computer time and so other people aren’t getting the time they had before, and I’m not asking him to do that, but honestly, the ramifications of what I’m working on is huge and if we end up being the ones cracking this and it’s as strange as it seems to be, it would put us in the history books. Like, Newton, Einstein, me and whoever I work with.”

“You would think that they would be clamoring to work with you.”

“Well, there are those, or were, until Dr. Stein made it clear that I was the PI and that I had an international team of specialists working with me and we wouldn’t really be needing any other graduate students for the time being.”

Michael nodded. The acting metaphor had made this all make sense. He’d seen enough casting conflicts and hurt feelings to last a lifetime. “Ah, so you’re the diva now.”

“Right. The bitch that walked in last minute and sucked all the oxygen out of the room. So, like, I have the worst cubicle space which I don’t care about, but then with the computer time happening, people have started leaving partially full containers of beer on my desk, and making comments about how I must have fucked Stein to get him to let me back in the program, and it’s just this ongoing hazing and I know it will go away eventually, so Elsie clears the bottles off my desk a couple times a day so I’m not seen reacting to it. And Kyle, who was the previous star – now he’s a diva, he swears he can’t work with all of us around him so he hangs out in the library and has turned it into his personal office – decided that the easiest way to reestablish his place in the hierarchy is to fuck me, and he will not stop asking me out.” She pulled her pony tail forward and chewed on a piece of her wet hair for a few seconds. “Guys like him respond to a boyfriend better than they do to the woman, regardless of what she’s said, so I finally gave in and called you.”

Michael hooked his finger around her hair and pulled it from her mouth. He’d never seen her chew on her hair before. “How long’s he been harassing you, baby?”

She started pushing back her cuticles with her thumbnail. He’d never seen her nails without polish before. The words came slowly when she answered. “For about a month. Once he realized exactly the scope of what I was doing and seeing how many of the faculties were supporting me and the resources I was getting access to. When he realized he wasn’t the star anymore.”

“And what did he do this morning?”

Halla didn’t say anything, but her chin began to tremble.

“What did he do, baby?”

Halla took reassurance from Michael’s gentle voice and the warmth of his arms. She snuggled into him and his arms wrapped tighter around her. “I was making a new pot of coffee and he came up behind me and pressed himself against me, so I was trapped between him and the counter. And he said,” she took a deep breath, “he said that he jacked off last night to the thought of coming all over my face.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

He didn’t sound like he was kidding. She sat back up and took his face in her hands. “No, you’re not.” The muscles in his jaw moved under her fingers. She stared him down until some of the ferocity left his eyes.

“Did you tell someone at least?”

“No.” She put her hand over his mouth as he moved to speak again. “I hit him with the coffee pot hard enough that it broke, and I told him that if he ever said something like that again I would turn him into Stein. And then I told all the grad students that he broke the coffee pot so now everyone’s pissed at him.” She giggled at the last part.

He took her hands and kissed both of them. “Promise me that if he does anything else you’ll talk to Stein.”

“I will. And I’ve written down everything he’s done and when and who was there to see it. It’s just,” she stopped and practically growled. “He wouldn’t be doing this if I was a guy. Elsie’s the only other female in the program, and both of us put up with so much shit from men who don’t think we know as much as them. Like Dr. Oliver being so friendly and helpful and giving me suggestions and that last one he gave me was so idiotic I could have rejected it without testing it but I can’t piss him off because he’s faculty so I tested it anyway. And I swear if he hits on me again I’m going to break a coffee pot over  _his_ head, too.”

Michael considered buying her a case of coffee pots to use when people pissed her off. “Is that what that was all about?”

“We had the opening social and a bunch of people were discussing the different superhero franchises and which one was best, and I said that I really liked the last two X-Men movies, and they thought it was funny that I knew anything about X-Men and I said I’d never read the comic books, but I thought Magneto’s story was really fascinating and I thought the actor did a really good job at portraying the rage that would go into a history like that. So ever since then Dr. Oliver keeps talking to me about you and making creepy comments and seriously, anyone who thought your character in  _Fish Tank_  was a good guy led astray by a slutty teenager needs to reevaluate their morality  _and_  their approach to hitting on women, because gross.”  

He smiled in response to her disgusted face. There was a bit of her normal sass peeking out.

She ran her hand across her damp hair. “It’s not fair, and I know life isn’t fair, and I have it better off than so many people, but I just get tired of how much of the world’s not fair gets dumped on women for no other reason than that they’re women.”

“I know, darling. I wish I could fix it.”

“Thank you for coming when I called.” His somber expression shifted into a crooked grin and sparkling eyes. She smacked him in the chest. “Not like that, you perv.”

He threw back his head as he laughed. She snuggled into him and he tightened his arms around her. “I may be a perv, but I’m your perv.” He kissed the top of her head.

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his shirt. “My favorite perv.”


	5. 25 October 2014

Halla flipped her pillow over the cool side and flumped her head down on it again. “Wormholes don’t work like that!”

“Halla.” It was the sound of a man who had been patient for much longer than normal.

She smacked the back of her hand against his arm. “No, seriously. It made no sense. Isn’t the bifrost supposed to be an Einstein Rosen bridge? That’s a distortion in space-time, not gravity, which means all the realms coexist in the same plane. If you’re folding all the realms upon each other, you’re messing with space-time, not gravity! And why is gravity tearing circular holes in the atmosphere anyway? If gravity is fluctuating that much, why does it only have such localized effects? And why do you sometimes see the other realms through the holes and sometimes not? Gravity would be distorting the light moving from one realm to another. You wouldn’t get clear views like that.”

Michael raked his nails against his scalp. She had been like this since they left the theatre over an hour ago. “Halla, it’s a movie.”

“But Jane’s an astrophysicist,” Halla ranted into the darkness of their bedroom. “She should know better! You don’t get giant glowing holes in the atmosphere with gravitational fluctuation. Not without other catastrophic effects along the way. The Thames would have flooded London long before Thor laid the smack down on Elfboy. And gravity doesn’t leave a residue. There shouldn’t be things floating like that. And ‘sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t’? What kind of transparent plot device was that?”

Michael sighed. “It’s a comic book movie. It has elves and Norse gods in it. I’m sure the science doesn’t make sense in the X-Men movies either. Engage a suspension of disbelief and just go with it.”

“But isn’t the whole idea behind Jane and Thor is that they’re two ways of understanding the same reality? Magic and science are the same thing – soul forges and quantum field generators. His brawn and her brain. They’re supposed to complement each other and complete each other but she’s more excited by her gravity phase detector or whatever she was calling that thing then she ever was by him!”

Michael opened his eyes and rolled over on his side so he could see her better in the dim light. “Are you doubting our relationship because of this movie? Am I Thor in this scenario and you’re Jane?”

Halla paused and looked at him before she giggled. “No! You’re much sexier than bad science.”

Michael flopped back over, slightly disappointed that their relationship was not at stake. At least  _those_  doubts he could have understood.

“And the whole weapon system makes no sense,” she continued. “They have laser cannons but are still putting infantry into battle with swords? What kind of tactical genius came up with that plan?

This had to stop before he went crazy. “Halla, I swear to God, go to sleep.”

“And why do the Dark Elf ships look like Necromonger columns and B-wing fighters?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about now, but if you don’t stop I’m never buying you popcorn again.”

The threat seemed to work because she fell silent.

A few minutes later, just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard a whispered, “Michael?”

His jaw clenched shut, his teeth grinding together with enough force he was surprised they didn’t crack. “Yes?”

“I think you’re sexier than good science, too.”

He relaxed as he reached for her in the darkness. Once he had her pulled against his chest, he said, “I feel like I’m getting attacked when you criticize a film like that. That I’m an actor and therefore any film you see is representative of me.”

She giggled as she trailed her fingers down the center of his chest. “Well, that’s silly.”

“But it’s how I feel. You’re having this whole other conversation with yourself at a level I can’t even understand and I feel dumb and I get defensive.”

Halla propped herself up so she could see his face. “You aren’t dumb.”

“I feel dumb around you sometimes. Especially when you get like this. It’s like you watched an entirely different film than I did.”

She placed a kiss on the corner of his jaw before she touched the lines between his eyebrows and gently rubbed them until they relaxed away. “Is this about what Kyle said? About you not being able to understand my work?”

“I get that you’re a genius. I get that you’re doing things that I would need years of study to come close to comprehending. But as an actor, I can imagine myself into the headspace of just about anyone. I can see the world they way they would have seen it but nothing I do is ever going to make it possible for me to see the world the way you do and that makes you feel distant. Foreign. Like there’s always going to be something separating us.”

She continued to lightly drag her fingertip across his eyebrows as she looked down at him. “My first instinct here is to grab your cock and make a joke about how nothing separates us since I went on the pill.”

He tightened his arm around her slight frame. He was frankly surprised she hadn’t climbed out of the bed by now. “I know. You hate conversations like this.”

“If I can’t fix it by flashing you my boobs, it makes me nervous and I don’t think that’s going to sort this one.”

Michael rolled her over onto her back and pulled up her shirt. His head tilted to the side as he considered her breasts for a long moment, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “Mmmmm, not fixed, but it didn’t hurt, either.”

Halla laughed as she slithered out of her tee and tossed it on the floor before she took Michael’s hands and placed them on her breasts. “How about I promise to have my ‘trash the bad science in that film’ conversations with Elsie? I mean, I know it doesn’t fix everything, but at least it’s a start.”

Michael traced his middle finger around her nipple, watching it harden at his touch. “It’s a start.” He caught her eyes as he continued to tease her. “Don’t stop telling me the things you find fascinating though. I want to know what you’re excited about every day.”

She shivered under his leisurely caresses. “I won’t. I promise I’ll do my best to give you Hallavision.”

“My personal rose colored glasses.” He bent and licked the hard peak of her breast and her hands grabbed his shoulders and then slid down his arms. Maybe flashing her boobs at him did solve everything. He definitely felt less separated from her now than he had twenty minutes ago. He tugged at her nipple with his teeth as he squeezed her other breast and smiled possessively at the soft noise she made in her throat. He knew sex wouldn’t solve everything, but it was a start.


	6. 31 October 2014

Halla was going to give Michael three more minutes of chatting with all of his friends before she dragged his ass out onto the dance floor. Halloween was one of her absolute favorite nights of the entire year and she was not going to spend it chit chatting away when this fabulous party was lying out in front of her like a feast waiting to be savored. She looked over the balcony railing at the dancing on the main floor and decided Michael had one minute before she just went down there without him. Rich people threw much better parties than the ones she remembered from university.

Maybe she could get Anne-Marie to go with her and the boys could enjoy their beers and their chatter by themselves. She had to admit though, that both of the men had been admirably enthusiastic in dressing up for the night. James was the most insane Mad Hatter she had ever seen to Anne-Marie’s spot on recreation of Alice in her armor from Tim Burton’s version of the movie. She even had her vorpal blade with her. And Michael had been easily persuaded to be Lupin, especially when he found out that he was actually a werewolf. He looked disreputable and sexy as sin in a worn tweed suit and with three days of scruff. She was looking forward to hanging the full moon above their bed tonight and seeing what happened, especially when she recalled the look in Michael’s eyes when he had opened the door to see her in her Tonks get-up. His eyes had slowly travelled from her purple hair past the choker necklace, the long gypsy shirt laced up the front over a pink velvet vest and patchwork trousers cut off at the knee, to her torn stockings and combat boots. He had a wand, but he was also very happy to see her.

Halla was wiggling along to the music as she listened to the conversation going on around her. The flashing lights and dark draped walls of the club were calling her onto the dance floor and if she could get Michael down there too, maybe into one of those little secluded alcoves curtained off from the rest of the room. Michael might find her outfit sexy, but it was nothing compared to some of the blatant T&A on display tonight. She was about to grab his hand and yank him down the stairs as the music throbbed in her veins when a female voice called, “Michael!”

He turned around and enthusiastically hugged Maggie. “I didn’t realize you were in town.”

“Just here filming my next project.”

“You know James and Anne-Marie, right? And you remember Halla?”

“Of course.” Maggie’s smile slipped a bit. “I didn’t think I’d be running into you tonight though.”

“Michael and I are dating now.” She slipped her hand into Michael’s and squeezed.

“Oh, well that’s wonderful. Quite a difference from the last time the two of us were at a club together. Though that’s probably for the best. Wasn’t the best night of either of our lives, was it?”

Halla tightened her fingers around Michael’s as she struggled not to run away. “No, it wasn’t.”

Maggie darted forward and hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry for what happened,” she whispered. “I’m not normally like that.”

Halla shook her head and squirmed out of the hug after Maggie held on a second too long. “It’s all forgotten.”

Maggie frowned but then kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve got to go,” she said, “but it was great seeing you all.” 

The three other people watched Maggie leave and then turned in unison to look at Halla.

“What was that about, poppet?” James asked, when she continued to stare steadfastly at her cherry Coke in lieu of looking at them.

“Nothing. We had a little run-in that night that everything went to shit is all.”

Michael ran his hand down her back, every vertebra straight as a ruler. “Before or after you slapped me?”

Halla took a drink of her coke and set the glass back down on the damp cocktail napkin. “After.”

“When did you…,” the pieces fell into place. “Oh. Alright then.” Michael took a long swallow of his Guiness and carefully set the bottle back down. “Do you want to go dance, baby?”

“Yes, please.” She didn’t even bother to look at James and Anne-Marie as she left the tall table and headed down the curving stairs to the dance floor. Michael didn’t try and talk to her for the first few songs. Her purple hair flared around her as she danced, losing herself in the music. He’d seen her dance before; she danced all the time at home.  This was different though. Dancing with her in a crowd of people, the way she moved garnering admiring glances from some of the other men was simultaneously less and more intimate. He still couldn’t understand how she didn’t think she was sexy, because he was at half mast just watching her. He wrapped an arm around her waist and bent to whisper in her ear.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“Nope.”

“But she was the one who– ,”

“Yep.”

“Alright then.”

The DJ segued into a mix of Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and Michael decided to take the lyrics as advice and just start rocking on the dance floor and act naughty. He tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. Halla took his possessiveness in stride and rolled her hips against him before she went back to dancing, her body moving against his. He spread his hand over her stomach, slipping two of his fingers inside the waist of her trousers only to discover she was wearing tights.

“You like making things difficult for me, baby?” He rubbed his stubbled chin against her neck and she grinned before she turned around.

“Even you need a challenge some times, caveman.”

“You think your tights are a challenge?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can get them off of me. Eventually.” She pulled his head down so she could kiss him; kiss that arrogant smirk off of his face. He knew what he could do to her, and she didn’t mind him knowing, but every once in a while she’d like to have the illusion of being able to resist the scorching heat he sent through her body with a single word or glance or a flash of that smirk. Their tongues touched as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and she sucked on his, tasting the bitter chocolate and coffee flavor of his Guinness.

“Before you leave the party,” he said in her ear, trying not to be overheard as the music blared.

“What?”

“I bet I can get them off of you before we leave the party.”

That arrogant smirk was back as he rubbed his scruff against her neck again.  She ran her nails over his scalp as she moaned softly. “I’d have to take my trousers off first.”

“That’s the easy part,” he chuckled.

She kissed him again, suckling at his lip, scraping her teeth over it. His kisses were bitter like burnt malt. “I had other plans for these tights.”

“Oh really?” He pushed his leg between hers so she rubbed against his thigh as she moved.

It was her turn to smirk. “Yes.”

“Care to share the details, darling?”

His hand tightened on her bum and he ground against her as she hesitated. He couldn’t tell if the color in her cheeks was from the exertion of dancing or if she was blushing. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down and scraped her teeth against his earlobe before she whispered, “Well, since they’re already torn, I thought maybe you’d like to tear them a bit more.”

He shuddered, either from her breath or from her words, he didn’t know but he pulled back to see the questioning look in her eyes as she bit the inside of her lip. “You want me to rip your tights off you?” This was a side of her he hadn’t seen before.

“Not…off.”

That was definitely her blushing. He bent down to her ear, whispered directly against the skin, his beard rasping against her jaw as he spoke. “You want me to rip open your tights so I can fuck your sweet little pussy while you’re still wearing them?”

Goosebumps broke out across her arms as the heat in his voice sent a chill down her spine. “Is that too twisted?”

“Is it twisted that you get me so aching hard that I don’t have the patience to take your clothes off before I fuck you?” He slipped his hand down the back of her trousers and his nails scratched against the lycra covering her arse as his fingers cupped her, pulling her tightly against him. The music allowed him to grind her against him with impunity and she could feel the outline of his rock hard cock stretching down the inside of his trouser leg. “That if I waited to undress you I would come on you instead of inside you?”

His words had paralyzed her brain, her lungs, her mouth and she fought to get past the image of him taking her in a frenzy of wild abandon, of him coming on her that had locked up her internal monitor. Her head fell forward against his chest and she took a breath, trying to get her lungs to work again. The scent of him filmed her and just made it worse. The aroma of his sweat and the scent of arousal hit her like a sledgehammer and her head started to spin. She couldn’t breathe and her body was swamped in a wave of cloying heat. Michael’s hand dug into her arse to hold her up as she went limp. “I need to sit,” she whimpered. “I need to sit.”

Michael scooped her up before she fell and shoved people out of his way as he hurried her off the dance floor. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I ca…ca…ca…I ca…I can’t…”

He shushed her, his lips on her forehead. The bouncer opened the door for him and he carried her out into the cold night air. She huddled against him, turning her face into his chest. He held her tighter and gestured for the valet to open the door of the cab waiting at the curb. He had no idea what was going on. He had no idea what to do as he sat in the back seat of the cab with his girlfriend wrapped in his arms. The flicker of neon and traffic lights and passing autos illuminated her face as she rested against him, all the color absent from her skin. It was like holding the ghost of a shadow.

She scrambled off of his lap when the cab pulled up in front of his house, ran for the door while he paid the driver. He made it into the house just as the shower turned on and ran up the stairs, following the pieces of her costume, into the bathroom. She was sitting in the shower in her ripped tights, her skin already turning red from the water. He slapped at the fixture, turning it off and grabbed her, picking her up and carrying her out of the bathroom. She slapped at his chest. “Let me down!”

“I’ll let you down, but you’re not repeating what you did in Rotterdam, baby. You’re not going to hurt yourself again. Not while I’m here to stop it.”

He lowered her and she stood, dripping water onto the carpet in their bedroom, staring at him. He stared back, his arms folded across his chest. She moved to go back in the bathroom but he blocked her. She moved in the other direction and he blocked her again.

“You don’t understand.”

He put his hands on his hips. “What don’t I understand? Use your words. Use your goddamn words and tell me what’s tearing you up inside so bad that you think burning yourself is an answer!”

The water dripped from her hair down her cheek. He wanted to brush it away, wanted to hold her and comfort her, but he couldn’t. She wouldn’t let him. Not right now. The tight line of her mouth, the way her fingers were clenching into fists, her rigid spine; it all telegraphed animosity. So he waited. He could hear the ticking of his watch it was so silent as he waited for her to tell him what was damaging her like this. Her shoulders started to slump, her hands slowly relaxed. She started to pick at her manicure and he leaned back against the wall.

“There were a couple years between when I got kicked out of Cambridge and when I put my brother in a wheelchair where I just gave up. I drank a lot. It’s good to be numb. After a while you drink because the numb’s not enough. The numb is a reminder of the feelings that used to be there. So you start drinking until the numb is gone. Until you can’t even feel numb. You’re just gone.” She started pacing the room, never looking at him, talking to the skeletons in her closet. “It’s like your body’s not even there anymore, and when you’re that drunk, all the time, you have to stay that drunk or you get the shakes. It’s worse than just shaking though. You start hallucinating, hearing things, seeing things. I was seeing things when I hit my brother. I knew I had to show up to my parents sober or they’d cut off my last source of money so I hadn’t drank in twenty four hours. I was actually sober when I paralyzed him for life, as ironic as that is.”

He reached out to hold her but she lurched back from him and he let his hand fall.

“No, don’t touch me.” She shook her head frantically, droplets spraying through the air. “You don’t want to touch me. I did so much stuff when I was drunk. Used stuff. Not a lot of the time, because booze was always my best friend, but I smoked stuff. Snorted stuff. Shot up a couple times. And I did things. So many things. Maggie was the least of it. I ran into her in the bar and she’d had a fight with her husband and you’d called me a whore and I’d slapped you and quit and Henry was fucking someone else and we both just hated men and I wanted to forget how painful it was to have my hope my shatter once more. Shattered hope cuts worse than shattered glass.” She looked up at him with red swollen eyes. “Did you know that? It really does.” She went back to pacing and finally stopped by the window, staring out the tinted glass. “So I got drunk and we were strong independent women who didn’t need any stupid men and we went back to her hotel room and,” she started sobbing, her shoulders surging with each panicked breath, “and we started making out and it didn’t, it didn’t, it didn’t….”

The words disappeared into her crying, hysterical tears coursing down her face. Michael stepped towards her and she held up her hand, her eyes wide in panic. “Don’t touch me. I did so many things. Horrible horrible things. Stuff I can’t even remember except for the photos they would take of me with my own phone. Stuff that I wish I could forget.” She rubbed her hand across her face, wiping at the tears and snot.

Her entire body was shaking and Michael grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could. She continued to shake, taking four or five tries to get out a single word sometimes. “I want, I want, I want to be able to do, to do, to do those things with you but it just brings back so, so, so many memories. I ca…I ca….I can’t make it go away. I’ve tried and I can’t make them go away.”

She exhausted herself crying, soaking through the front of his shirt as he held her. His hand moved in a steady motion over her back as he had nothing else to give her except for comfort. He finally laid down with her, took off her tights and helped her into one of his shirts, covered her up and stroked her hair until she was asleep.

And then he called James. “I need help. I don’t know what to do and I need help.”

 


	7. 6 November 2014

_Two am, Thursday, 6 November 2014_

Halla stared at the paperwork in front of her, hesitant to touch it. It sat in a nice neat stack on the cheap laminate surface of her kitchen table looking very official.  She’d filled out the extensive medical history and her alcohol abuse history and legal history. Now she just had to go turn it in. It had sat there untouched for two days now as she was unable to force herself to pick it up and take it back to the treatment center because of those little words at the bottom. Private clinic. There was no way she could afford the treatment she knew she needed. Not on a graduate student stipend. So the papers sat and watched her, making her skin crawl in her own little home.

Not that it really felt like home. Nothing felt like home right now. Everything itched and scratched and felt too tight since Michael had left. Though if she wanted to be honest, she had left him. She’d woken up on the first of November and run. Like a coward. Again. She knew he had to fly out that afternoon and would be gone for seven weeks so she had waited until he was in the shower and hopped a train back to Cambridge and kept her mobile off until his flight was in the air. She couldn’t face him, not after the hysterical breakdown she had gone through the night before. She would just leave and spare him the difficulty of breaking up with her. Nobody would want to be with her after what she’d revealed about herself that night.

He’d called that day. Multiple times. The first message had been short. “Where are you? Did you go get breakfast? Ring me.”

And then longer. “Halla, baby. What’s going on? Where are you? I’m worried. Please ring me.”

And then even longer. “Halla, baby. I know you. Your mobile is going straight to voicemail and you’re running. You’re scared and you’re running. Please come back. I love you. We’ll figure this out.”

He didn’t leave a message every time he rang her mobile. She supposed that twenty-seven messages would have been excessive. But there were enough. “Baby. Please don’t do this. You know I have to leave this afternoon. Don’t let it be like this.”

“Halla. I’m at the airport. Please ring me.”

“Goddamn it, Halla. Answer your fucking phone.”

“The flight attendant’s going to tell me to turn off my phone in a second, so I’m just going to tell you one more time. I love you, Halla. I love you but I’m not going to chase you if you want to run more than you want me to catch you. Ball’s in your court, baby.”

She listened to the messages again. She’d played them so many times in the last five days that she had them memorized but she wanted to hear his voice. Hear him call her baby. Tell her he loved her. Suck the strength out of those sounds so she could finally get the courage to push the innocuous green button on her mobile.

“Ball’s in your court, baby.”

She curled up on her bed, wrapped herself around the giant crocodile plushie he had bought her – lord, that boy had an ego – and rang him. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hi.”

She sucked back a sob. God, she had missed his voice. A single syllable and it was like being home again. “Hi.”

“I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to hear from you again. Though I guess five days is better than five months like last time.”

She closed her eyes and rolled over on her back. Even hearing him bitter and angry was better than not hearing him at all. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. You’ve got to get past this need you have to run away when you’re scared. Do you think I’m going to hurt you? Are you scared of me?”

“No, I’m not. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” She stroked her face against the lush green pile of the crocodile. She had to end this before they both ended up even more hurt than they already were. “But you don’t want me, love. Not with my history.”

“I do want you. I love you, Halla. How can you be a genius and such an idiot at the same time? I love you. You!”

“You don’t understand…”

“No,  _you_  don’t understand.” The sound of him hitting something travelled through the speaker and Halla dropped her phone. He was yelling loud enough that she could hear him as she fished it out of the rumpled blankets. “I don’t care what you did in your past. I couldn’t give a fuck about the shit you did. I care about who you are right now and I love who you are right now so stop running the fuck away from the people who love you and want to help! You’ve got a whole fucking team of people helping you figure out what the hell it is you found in outer space. Let me help you figure out how to deal with the shit you’re carrying around inside your soul.”

How could he go from angry to pleading like that? She curled up around the crocodile again, wishing it was actually Michael and not just his reptilian stand-in. She felt so helpless and alone. “I don’t know what to do, Michael.” She pressed her hand to her eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears she could feel building. “I found this place here that does intensive outpatient treatment and counseling but there’s no way I can afford it. I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered.

“I’ll pay for it.”

Halla shook her head. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

She would never be in debt to anyone else in her life. She’d had enough of that to last her a lifetime already. “Because I don’t want your money. That’s not why I’m dating you.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to pay for it.” He chuckled softly and Halla felt his voice wrap around her like a hug. “You keep me sane, baby girl. The last year’s been crazy and it’s only going to get more so and I need you. I don’t say that enough, I just say that I love you, but I need you, Halla. I need you in my life to keep the rest of it in perspective, to keep me grounded, to keep me from becoming someone I hate. Please, baby, let me do this for you. Let me be selfish and pay for it.”

She managed a watery smile. “Well, if you want to be a selfish bastard, I guess I can’t stop you.”

His laughter was back in full force. “The sooner you realize that I  _am_  a selfish bastard and the thing I want most in the world is to keep you happy, the better off we’ll be.”

She pulled at the line of light green triangles making its way down the crocodile’s back, making sure each one stood perfectly upright. “I thought you’d be happier without me. Better off.”

“You’re my stupid genius.” She knew it meant ‘I love you’ in Michael’s personal dialect.

“Selfish bastard.” It meant ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

“That’s right, and proud of it. We make a pretty good team, the two of us. Just remember, it’s the two of us now, baby. You’re not dealing with this shit alone anymore. Promise me that.”

She felt at home in her skin again. “I promise.”

“Good. Now give me the number for this place so I can ring them in the morning and set up payment.”


	8. 26 November, 2014

_Wednesday_  

Halla pulled her old threadbare robe around her as she opened the door, wondering who was calling this late at night. It took her a moment to process the unexpected face.

“Michael!”

He dropped his bag and caught her as she jumped at him, throwing her arms around his neck, and held her tightly as she wrapped her legs around his waist, peppering his face with kisses. Michael tried to kiss her back but her mouth was moving too fast. He smiled when she buried her face against his throat and tightened her arms. “Oh, god I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

He kicked his bag through the door as Halla seemed unlikely to let go of him at any time in the near future and closed it behind him. “Well, I guess that answers that question.”

“What question?” The words were muffled from being spoken into his skin.

He sat down on the edge of her bed and slipped his hands under her robe now that she was sitting on his lap. His hands stroked over her back, her hips, the curve of her bum as he pulled her closer, under her shirt, trying to reacquaint himself with every inch of her skin. “Whether or not you would be happy to see me.”

That actually made her pull back to look at him. She grabbed his face with her hands. “Why wouldn’t I be happy to see you, you ginormous oaf?” She planted a kiss on his mouth but before she stopped, he caught her face in his hands and kissed her back. He held her still, brushed his lips against hers, and kissed her tenderly, over and over, until the hummingbird in his arms calmed into his Halla again.

When their frantic need to reassure each other of the reality of their togetherness had subsided, Michael finally pulled back enough to talk. “We didn’t part under the best conditions. I know things have been good over Skype and the phone, but it’s different when there’s half a world between us than with me showing up on your doorstep, especially considering how much you like your distance when things get rough.”

She curled her arms against her chest as she snuggled back into him. “I’m not running now.”

“No, you’re not.” His arms tightened around her and one of his hands slipped inside the back of her knickers to cup her bum. “I wish I could know that you won’t run again, but I’m not sure that’s something you can promise me. Not promise and keep.”

She took a deep breath, letting the scent of him fill her with memories of their times together. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of his jacket. “I don’t want to run. I really don’t. It’s something I’ve been talking about in treatment.”

He tipped her face up so he could see her. “How’s that going?”

“It sucks. It’s so hard having to deal with all that shit, and I feel like someone’s been beating me with sticks by the end of each session. But the clinic has a sauna, so afterwards I go in there and just sweat it all out.”

“You’re being careful with the heat, right?”

She nodded and let her hair fall in her face. “I told the people there about what I did in Rotterdam, and they only let me stay in for so long.” She began to play with the tab on his jacket zipper, pulling it up and down. “We’ve been talking a lot about why I run. I think a lot of it has to do with my brother. I feel like every time I screw up, it’s going to hurt someone like that. I’ve already destroyed one life. I don’t want to destroy any others.”

“You aren’t–,”

She closed his mouth with her fingers. “I’m not saying it makes rational sense, but that’s what’s going on in my head. I’m going to end up emotionally crippling you if I stay and make you deal with all my crap. So I leave. To protect you.”

He smiled and kissed her. “That’s very sweet of you. Incredibly stupid, but very sweet.”

“I just don’t want to be the cause of any more pain. I’ve hurt so many people.”

He smoothed her hair back from her face, stroking it as he talked. “You leaving, you running away? That hurts me more than you staying. Next time you get the urge to run, tell yourself that, over and over. Running will hurt him more than staying.”

“Running will hurt him more than staying,” she whispered.

“I’ve been reading in the evenings. I got some books about recovering, uh, from sexual abuse and how to help your partner, and how to support your partner when they’re an alcoholic. I’m trying to learn, you know, what I can do to help you, but I never know how bad things are until they get to the crisis level, and I’d really like to help before it gets that bad.”

Her chin quivered almost imperceptibly as she frowned. “I don’t want to bother you, though.”

“You promised you’d let me help, remember?”

“Yes, but–,”

It was his turn to quiet her objections and he put his fingers over her mouth. “No buts. I get to help, baby. You promised.”

“I don’t know how to ask. I’ve always been able to manage on my own and then life barfed all over me and I don’t know how to ask.”

He smiled. “You just say, ‘I need help.’”

Her cheeks puffed as she blew out her frustration. “You make it sound so easy.”

“Try it. I know it’s hard the first time, but once you see that a giant black hole doesn’t immediately appear and eat the whole planet, it might be easier the next time.”

“Can’t we just have sex?” She wiggled impatiently in his lap. “We haven’t had sex in almost a month.”

“Not until after you ask for help.”

She pouted for a moment and then she smiled sweetly. “Will you please help me have sex with you?”

His grin showed all his teeth. “Closer. Try again.”

Her shoulders slumped and she began to push back the cuticles on her fingernails with her thumb. “My therapist wants me to write out my triggers, and signs that I’m craving or getting ready to run, and come up with something I will do instead for each sign and then a list of ten people I can call and get help from and I haven’t done it yet because I don’t know if I have ten people in my life now that qualify and I don’t want to think about all the triggery crap, especially by myself, but if you’re here then I’m not by myself, and can you help me do my therapy homework please?”

“Yes, gladly.”

The two of them curled up on her sofa, her back against his chest and his arm around her waist, and Halla started filling in the forms. Some of the things she talked about, others she just let him read. They came up with two crisis plans together, one for when Michael was available and one for when he wasn’t. And then they came up with a list of ten people she could call. Michael pulled out his mobile and started entering their names and numbers.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to have all their information in case I can’t get to you fast enough, or if you need more than just me. I actually want a copy of the rest of it as well, just to help me remember what you need, but this way I won’t have to dig around for the paper if I need to ring someone.”

Halla waited for Michael to finish inputting her sponsor’s name and information into his mobile. When he put the device away she folded the papers and put them in her backpack and then stood in front of him, her hands on her hips. “ _Now_ can we have sex?”

Michael scratched his jaw and smiled up at her. “I don’t know. It’s almost two am. Don’t you have to go to the lab in the morning?”

She took a step closer, so her legs were on either side of his knees. “I’m calling in sick.”

 “Oh, so you’re going to be naughty and skip work, are you?” He slowly stroked her legs with both of his hands, letting his fingers tease up the back of her thighs.

“How long are you here?”

“I catch a flight back Sunday morning.”

She delicately faked a cough. “Then I’m sick until Sunday.” She lowered herself onto his lap and he grabbed her bum and pulled her flush against him, letting her feel his growing erection. “The universe is over thirteen billion years old. It can wait another few days for me to figure it out.”

“Good, because I don’t want to wait another minute to make love to you.”

They reached for each others’ shirts at the same time and their hands collided. It was only a few moments though before their tops were on the ground and Michael was carrying Halla to her bed. She shimmied out of her knickers while he shucked off his jeans and pants and then he was over her, kissing her with both hands in her hair, his weight resting on his forearms as she wrapped her legs around his hips. She held his face as they kissed, and as his mouth moved over her neck and her shoulders she pressed kisses to his arms, and as he whispered to her that she never needed to run from him she wrapped her arms around him, one around his neck, the other around his back, burying her face in the crook of his neck where she could feel every breath and word and taste his skin and be surrounded by the scent of his flesh. He pressed into her and she lifted her hips to take him, letting his touch fill the hollows that had haunted her since she had ran from him almost a month before. It felt like a new beginning as they moved together, holding on to each other, sharing the air in their lungs, until she came, his name on her lips, and he followed soon after, her name on his.

She slept on top of him that night, cradled between his legs, her head over his heart. One of his hands was on her back, the other wrapped in her hair. The sound of his heart and the steady motion of his chest soothed her like an ocean, and for the first time since she had run away she slept without nightmares. Michael didn’t sleep much that night. He’d slept on the plane and his internal clock was off by eight hours anyway. Mostly, though, he just held her, pressing kisses to her hair, hoping that through some magic that the closer he kept her now, the less distance she would seek in the future.

 


	9. 20 December 2014

Michael hurried across the crowded car park as he buttoned his suit coat and smoothed his hair. He was late for the observatory’s annual Christmas party because his flight back into Heathrow had been delayed. He’d messaged Halla to let her know he was on his way after he caught a quick shower and changed and she had said she would meet him there. He hadn’t seen her in person in three weeks and was a bit irritated that his delayed plane meant that he didn’t get her to himself for a few minutes before having to share her. He was starting to forget what her hair smelled like as she slept sprawled across his chest.

The sign in the foyer of the fancy club pointed up the staircase and he opened the ornate wooden door to the room to see Halla toss her drink in Kyle’s face.

Oh good, he was just in time for all the fun.

“You bitch!” Kyle yelled. The room fell silent, all the chatter cutting off like a giant mute button had just been pushed. The only noise left was a stereo playing Frank Sinatra Christmas carols.

“You spiked my drink, you asshole,” Halla yelled back.

He ran his arm over his face, using his sleeve to dry it. “It’s a party, everyone’s drinking.”

“Except the alcoholics.” The words came out across gritted teeth as she craned her neck to glare up at him. Michael fought the urge to go hold Kyle down so she could punch him in the face. She was an angel of fury at the moment, clad in a little black jumper that almost slid off her shoulder and pair of silver trousers that shimmered in the light. She seemed to be handling the matter at the moment, and he waited for a sign that he needed to step in.

“You’re an alcoholic?” His eyes widened practically to the size of saucers. “I never knew.” His voice was cloyingly sweet.

“Kyle, go home.”

Everyone’s heads turned towards the older man who had spoken. Someone silenced the stereo and Michael could hear his heart pounding in his chest.

“You’re making me leave over a joke, Dr. Stein?”

Michael hadn’t met Dr. Stein before but he knew the name; he was the head of the observatory and Halla’s mentor. Kyle sounded and acted like a petulant teenager as he faced down his boss, and you didn’t have to be an actor to notice the annoyed cock of the hip or narrowing of the eyes or the way the upper lip retracted slightly. He scratched his cheek, wondering how it was possible for an adult to completely lack self-awareness.

Dr. Stein stood and Michael felt like if you had asked central casting to send you over a professor, this man was who they would send you. His dark hair was cut short and tortoiseshell spectacles sat on his nose over a salt and pepper goatee.  He was even wearing a tweed blazer with suede elbow patches and a bow tie. “It’s a joke to you. It’s a last straw to me.”

Kyle ran his hand through his hair, making the damp strands stand on end. “A last straw?”

“I’ve been fielding reports of your behavior the entire term. You sexually harass your peers and then endanger the health of one of them. Go home. And I want to see you in my office Monday morning to discuss your continued stay at the observatory.”

Michael couldn’t decide if he wanted Kyle to shut up so he wouldn’t continue to embarrass himself in front of everyone, or if he was rooting for the man to completely self-destruct in front of an audience. He looked at Halla and decided he was firmly on the side of destruction. His German side could embrace the  _schadenfreude_  of the moment, especially considering what the man had done to Halla. Twice now. It was worth the second hand discomfort of watching someone be incredibly oblivious to the social cues of everyone around him to know he wouldn’t be harming her anymore.

“You’re just going to take their word for it without hearing my side of it?”

Dr. Stein’s head tilted to the side, his dark hair flashing like a raven’s wing. “Whose word?”

“Halla and Elsie. They’re just being overly sensitive. I never harassed either of them.”

Dr. Stein smiled with all the satisfaction of a cat toying with a mouse. “Neither of them have said a word to me, but thank you for corroborating the stories your male colleagues have told me. Go home before you get yourself in any more trouble.”

Halla watched the vein throb in Kyle’s forehead as his lips went white. Finally, he turned on his heel and stormed through the room to the door. He stopped as he got to Michael. “Good luck taming that bitch.”

Michael promptly punched him in the face and broke his nose. The sound of bone breaking echoed in the silence like a gunshot. Halla’s hand flew to her mouth, mimicking Kyle’s hand flying to his bleeding face. He turned to look at the room, but nobody moved to help him or reprimand Michael, and he stalked out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

“Well,” Dr. Stein said, “that was a bit of unscheduled entertainment.” He looked around the room, his gaze lingering on some of the students more than others. “This better put a stop to the beer bottles being left on Halla’s desk and the rest of the shenanigans going on in the graduate student offices. Yes, I know about them. I know about everything. I’ve just been waiting for someone to go on the record about it. And let me just say that none of us saw Kyle get hit and if questioned, he left here completely unmolested. Now, back to the party.”

The music was turned back up and Halla hurried across the room to Michael and dragged him out the door. “Are you alright?” both of them asked each other in the same instant. Halla grabbed Michael’s hand and kissed his reddened knuckles.

“I’m fine, baby. How about you?”

She shook her head as she examined his hand for any cuts. She couldn’t care less that Michael had broken Kyle’s nose; she was just worried that he might have injured himself in the process. “I’ll be okay. I spit it out as soon as I tasted it and rum was never my thing anyway.”

“Are you sure? Do I need to do something?”

Satisfied that he was intact she smiled up at him. “You can kiss me.”

“Gladly.” He spun her around and backed her into the corner so they had a bit of privacy, his mouth already covering hers. If it wasn’t for her heels, she would have gone on tiptoe to get closer to him. As it was, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. His hands snuck under her slinky black jumper and settled on her warm skin. “What knickers are you wearing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Gimme a hint.”

She giggled and kissed his jaw. “They’re new.”

“Ooooh, nice. How long do we have to stay at this party before I get to take them off of you?”

She laughed and kissed the other side of his face. “At least a few hours.”

He pouted at her. “Really? You’re going to sit there in those shiny silver trousers for hours before you let me get in them?”

“Yes. Now come play nice.” She wiped the smear of her lip gloss off his mouth with her thumb and then tugged him back into the room. They ended up like they usually did when they went to one of these big social gatherings, him in a chair and her sitting on his thigh facing away from him while they both carried on separate conversations with different groups of people. He always kept his arm looped around her waist, and they would sometimes throw a comment into the other’s circle, or ask a question about the name of that place they went that one time, you know, the one with the really good crème brûlée. Michael could never remember the name of the restaurant, but it was branded into Halla’s memory because crème brûlée was her favorite dessert. She loved cracking the sugar topping with the back of her spoon. She had tried to convince Michael that they should get little blow torches and make it themselves, but for some reason Michael had been hesitant about this idea.

Dr. Stein stopped by to check on Halla and make sure she was alright and she introduced Nathan to Michael and the two started talking about where in Ireland are you from and then shifted into Formula One racing. Sean, Nathan’s partner, also asked Halla how she was doing. Sean had eighteen years of sobriety to his credit and understood the stresses she was under, as he was also a professor, though in the field of biomechanics. Halla and Sean chatted over their Cokes as he reassured himself that she wasn’t going to relapse while Nathan and Michael enjoyed their Guinness and soon the unpleasantness with Kyle was forgotten and the party was in full swing again.

“It’s so nice for Nathan to have someone to talk about car racing with. I’ve never been a fan, and now that we’re getting married, I know I’ll never get away from it.”

“You’re getting married?” Halla bounced on Michael’s leg. “That’s fantastic! Have you two set a date yet?”

“Sometime in the summer. Of course. When else do academics get married?”

She hugged him. “Oh, that’s exciting. Do you know any of the details? Where you’re going to do it?”

“Hopefully right here on campus. We want to use King’s Chapel.”

“That will be lovely. I’ve never been able to decide if I want a big huge princess wedding or something small on a beach on a tropical island.”

Michael hooked his chin over her shoulder. “I vote tropical island.”

“Yeah, well you put something on my hand that sparkles more than my trousers and then you get a vote.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He grinned like he’d just won a prize and went back to his conversation with Nathan.

It was three hours later when they were back at Halla’s flat, having decided to crash there for the night and drive back to London in the morning, that Michael got the first glimpse of the knickers she had on. “Damn, baby.” He slipped a finger under the thin strap stretched across her hip. “Do these even count? I mean, your knickers are always tiny because they’re yours, but these,” he dropped to his knees and pulled her trousers the rest of the way down her legs, “these are something else entirely.” He nuzzled her hip where the pale blue ribbon crossed her skin. “I can’t decide whether to take this scrap of fabric off you with my teeth or just push it to the side and fuck you with them still on.” He kissed her through the tiny piece of pink flowers at the apex of her thighs as his finger slid under the elastic and traced the strip across her hip to the tiny triangle at the top of her cheeks.

“Well, you better make up your mind soon.” Her hands rested on his head, trailing her fingers through his hair.

“Or what?” He pushed her back one more step and the side of her bed hit the back of her knees. She fell backwards laughing and he yanked the trousers off her feet before he crawled onto the bed as she scooted upwards. He followed her, kissing and licking at any skin that came close to his mouth.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Or I’ll be very sad?”

He laughed and kissed her stomach, pushing her jumper the rest of the way up her chest. “We can’t let that happen, can we? We have to keep Halla happy.” One hand closed over her breast as he kissed the other. “This bra is just about as non-existent as your thong.” He tugged the fabric down and swirled his tongue around her nipple as Halla started tugging at his shirt, pulling it free from his trousers. “Patience baby,” he murmured against her skin.

“No. I’ve been sitting on your leg all night. I want to sit on something else now.”

He pulled her nipple with his teeth before he let it go. “You want to sit on something, baby?” He crawled up one more stride and then kissed her hard before rolling them both over. He grabbed her hips and lifted her, settling her over his face. She fell forward and braced her hands against the wall as he pushed the thin strip of her knickers out of the way with his tongue before he began lapping and kissing at the smooth skin he had uncovered. She settled into place and when she pushed up off the wall he found her clit and licked it softly.

“Fuck, Michael,” she whispered as she rocked against his tongue. Her entire body started to stir, her stomach moving like a wave as each rotation of her hips drove her clit against his tongue. He sucked the little nub between his lips periodically, making her squeal each time, and she began to move faster, her hips shifting from the gentle rotation of a wave to a desperate grinding. She was flailing her hands, her fingers grasping at something, anything to hold on to as she bit the side of her lip. He grabbed her hands, interlacing his fingers with hers as she cried out and then plunged his tongue inside her, feeling a flood of wetness against his mouth as he licked and sucked, over and over, his tongue finding its way back to her clit, rapid little flickers against the swollen flesh. Every one of her breaths was a whine, her voice climbing the scale, her fingers tightening around his.

“Michael,” she pled as she ground against him and he pushed his tongue into her again, curling it against her g-spot before going back to her clit, to the exact spot that made her came undone and fluttered his tongue against it. Her thighs clamped around his face as she cried out, her body arching, her head falling back, her hair cascading down like silk. She cried his name out one more time as he sucked her clit between his lips and held it in place so his tongue could target exactly the right place, and she came undone, her release drenching him as she went from perfectly still to trembling under his touch.

She let go of his hands as she fell forward and he undid his trousers as she gasped for air, her eyes fluttering as she braced herself against the wall with one hand, the other one weaving through his hair. He lifted his hips as he tugged down his clothes and then stroked his cock a few times. Michael wasn’t worried in the least about her being wet enough as he picked her up and moved her so she was straddling his hips and let his cock nudge against her pussy until she grabbed it in her hand. She stroked it up and down her slick folds a few time before she pressed it up against her entrance and then let her knees slide out, sinking herself onto him.

Michael thrust up into her and she fell forward against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her back and began to pump into her, deeper with each push. She slowly sat up, synching the movement of her body with his. Michael pulled her jumper off and tossed it on the floor and sent the bra quickly after it. He squeezed her breasts, teasing the nipples until they were redder than her lips and hardened to sweet peaks against his palms. She pulled at the buttons on his shirt, wanting to feel his skin and not cotton under her hands. Michael helped her after she popped one of the buttons off and she ran her hands over his chest. She dug her nails into his skin as he thrust again and he groaned, his hands biting into the flesh of her thighs. He thrust up again and her eyes closed, her entire world dwindling to the points where her body touched his, his chest under her hands, the feel of his fingers against her thighs, her thighs against his hips, and then never ending motion of his cock deeper into her body, reestablishing the connection that had been denied for the last three weeks.

He was groaning with each thrust now, and the way he was grinding his teeth told her he was close to coming. She moved one of her hands from his chest to her clit, rubbing in quick soft circles. Michael lifted his head so he could watch and she leaned backward so he could get a better view, bracing her other hand on his leg.

“Fuck, Halla, could you be any more perfect?” His attention was distracted for a second by the tremor in her stomach and then the muscle in her leg spasmed under his hand. Her head fell back again and her body bowed so much that her hair brushed against his knees and he held onto her tighter as with a few last thrusts he came inside her right as she cried out his name, all the heat that had been building in her groin exploding through her, making her feel like her entire body was glowing.

When she was snuggled against him, the blanket loosely draped over their hips, she kissed his chest. “I’m so happy you’re back.”

He smoothed her hair away from her face before he kissed her forehead. “Four weeks before I have to catch another plane.”

“That sounds like heaven.” She kissed him again and then made a gagging noise and rubbed her hand against her lips. “Why do you have glitter on your chest?”

“Because it looks like Tinkerbell and ten of her closest friends had an orgy in my flat. I’m assuming you had something to do with that?”

Halla giggled and buried her face against his shoulder. “Chelsea helped.”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to tone down the Christmas decorations. I think I’ve got glitter in my lungs.”

Halla tried not to laugh and managed to keep it to a quiet snicker. “I did get a little enthusiastic.”

“A little? There’s an entire village of carolers singing under the Christmas tree and you wired the lights on the tree to flash in time with what they’re singing. I’m not sure how you did that.”

She rolled over so she was stretched out on top of him and crossed her arms on his chest, propping the point of her chin on her hands. “Can we keep the carolers?”

“Yes, but we’re getting a real tree, not that fake one you have up.”

“Okay. I can just swap the light show over.”

He stroked his fingers through her hair, winding some of it around his finger. “Besides, I have some of my own Christmas traditions I want to share with you.”

“Really?”

A smile spread slowly across his face. “And a few I wouldn’t mind starting.”

Halla felt the fire dragon in her belly stir in its slumber. “Like what?”

“Me, you, under the tree, watching the lights reflecting in your eyes as we make love.” He cupped her face in one hand, relearning it after their time apart.

“That sounds like a good tradition.”

“I’ll always come home to you for Christmas, Halla. That’s my promise.”

“And I promise to keep glitter levels below the point where you look like a stripper sneezed on you.”

He laughed, the wide open mouth, teeth baring laughter that meant he was truly happy. “I’ve missed you, baby.”

“I missed you, too, love.”


	10. 23 December 2014

Tuesday

Halla clutched Michael’s hand as she opened her parents’ front door. She’d been so nervous about the annual family Christmas dinner that she hadn’t been able to eat all day. It was her mother’s turn to host the extended family get together which meant aunts and uncles and cousins and over the last few years more and more babies were appearing as well. Last year she had been Michael’s assistant and now she was his girlfriend and she knew that was going to be a topic of conversation, mostly whispered, as well as whether or not she was drinking again. Hopefully there was bottled water or soda so it would be obvious she wasn’t. Other than the random Twitter comment, she didn’t have much contact with any of them. Hopefully everyone would be more interested in talking about astronomy than alcohol.

Michael kissed the top of her head right before they stepped into her parents’ house. She had acquired her affinity for over the top Christmas decorations honestly; he could see five different Christmas trees from where they stood removing their coats, all of them elaborately decorated in different styles. Her love for glitter seemed to be her own unique addition because he didn’t see any of the sparkle here that currently bedecked his own home.

A man about a decade older than Halla but with her coloring came up to them and took their jackets. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s about time you got here. You can’t hide forever. I know. I tried.”

Halla laughed and hugged him. “Sören, this is my boyfriend Michael. Michael, this is my oldest brother Sören.”

The two men shook hands as Halla scanned the room.

“He’s by the fireplace.” Sören answered her unspoken question.

“I don’t suppose he’s expressed a desire to talk to me yet?”

“No.”

Her shoulders slumped a bit before she took a deep breath and put her smile back on. “Well, I’ll make my way over at some point and tell him Happy Christmas anyway.”

“Good luck with that.”

Sören disappeared with their coats and Halla turned to Michael. “This is your last chance to run away before I introduce you to my parents.”

“I think I can handle them.”

She linked her pinky finger with his as they made their way through all the people chatting over cocktails. She introduce Michael enough times to lose count before she finally caught sight of her father mixing drinks at the bar that took up one corner of the large reception room.

“Hello, Dad.” She stood on tip toe to kiss him on his cheek. It was like watching a snow flake kiss a polar bear.

“Ah, there’s my angel.” He pulled her into a big hug. “I have something for you.” He opened the small fridge and pulled out a glass bottle of Coke. “There.” He handed it to her. “Now, no one will wonder what’s in your glass.”

“Oh, Dad. That’s so sweet of you.”

“Yes, well, there’s enough nosy busybodies in this assortment of gossipmongers that passes for your mother’s family to keep the scandal sheets in business for a month. No use giving them something to get their knickers in a twist about.”

Halla recognized the disgruntled expression on his face from familiarity on her own. “What’d they rat on you to Mum about?”

“So I put a tenner on the match down at the pub every once in a while.” He proceeded to break up the ice in the bucket with a pick as he talked. “You’d think I was gambling this family into ruin and selling the food off the table to support my habit the way they’re carrying on.”

“Mum will get over it eventually.” Her brows furrowed. “I think.” She bit her bottom lip for a second. “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce you to Michael. Michael, this is my dad.”

“I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. It’s nice to meet you finally.”

“As it is you. I’ll take just a moment to tell you that I thought you were brilliant in 12 Years a Slave. It was amazing but difficult to watch. And now I’ll just treat you as one of the family. What can I get you to drink?”

“I don’t suppose you have a Guinness anywhere back there, do you?”

“Of course I do.” He got one out of the fridge and deftly opened it before he handed it to Michael. “Incoming,” he muttered, right as Halla heard her mother squeal her name.

Halla put on a bright smile and turned around. “Mum!”

“Darling! One would think you were on another planet as often as you come visit your poor parents.” The woman had Halla’s slight build and coloring, but the sparkle that seemed to emanate from Halla was dull plastic in this woman.

“Well, school does take up most of my time.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you find time to come visit this handsome man, don’t you?” She grabbed Michael’s stomach and tickled him. Halla bit her lips to keep from laughing at the panicked look on his face as he held his hands up in the air to keep from touching her. “Gotta keep the sugar daddy satisfied, don’t you. Did he buy you that lovely jumper?”

Halla smoothed the shimmery silver tunic down over her hips. “Actually I bought it in the kids section at a consignment store.”

“Hmph.” She turned to Michael. “Should you really be drinking that?”

Michael looked at the Guinness in his hand and then at Halla. “Um, I think so?”

“Mother, he can have a drink.”

“Even around you?”

“Yes, he can drink around me.”

“It doesn’t affect you?”

Halla’s cheeks puffed as she sighed. “I’ve gotten a lot better. As long as I’m not stressed out, being around people drinking doesn’t really affect me anymore.”

Michael set the bottle back on the bar.

“Well. That’s good to hear. And you’re doing alright at school this time?”

“Yes, Mother. Things are going really well.”

Her dad intervened. “Ranka, she’s doing fine. Stop pestering your daughter.”

“I’m not pestering her. I just want to make sure she’s not messing up again.”

Halla took a deep breath, reminded herself that matricide was illegal no matter how conveniently placed that ice pick was, and let it out. “I’m going to go say hello to Patrek now.”

She abandoned Michael to her parents with only a small degree of remorse; her dad would defend Michael against Mum, especially as riled up as he was right now about being the subject of her and her sisters’ gossip. She turned away before she could see the way her mother’s eyes suddenly went soft, or the quiver of her chin she tried to hide behind her hand. She stopped to put the bag of presents under the tree, carefully fluffing each bow, stalling against the moment she would wish her brother Happy Christmas and he would act like she didn’t exist.

Renka turned to Michael. “Is she really not drinking?”

He kept his eyes fixed on Halla, watching her smooth the ribbons on the gifts over and over, the colored lights dancing on her hair. “That’s what she said, isn’t it?”

“Is she lying to me?”

He looked down at the short woman, so similar to and yet so alien from his own Halla. “Why do you think she would do that?”

“She never talks to me anymore.”

“Maybe if you believed her when she said something, she’d be more likely to share her life with you. Would you choose to spend time with someone who was only interested in your failures?” He walked away and stationed himself against a wall where he could watch Halla as she approached her brother.

“Happy Christmas, Patrek.” She felt the weight of everyone’s eyes on her as she waited for a response that wouldn’t come. She shifted from foot to foot and finally said, “I just want you to know that I love you.” She turned to leave but Patrek grabbed her by the wrist.

She looked at him with eyes blown wide, and she could hear the distinct sound of her mother’s gasp among all the other inhalations of surprise in the room.

“I see you still wear the necklace I got you even after I haven’t talked to you in over two years.”

Halla blinked several times and nodded. “I never take it off.”

“Mom said you got your fellowship back.”

“Yeah.”

“World famous for finding things in the sky.”

She shook her head. “World famous to the handful of people who care about those things.”

Patrek smiled. “So modest, especially since you’re here with your movie-star boyfriend.”

Halla blushed and ducked her head. “He’s just my Michael, to me.”

“You’ve really managed to get your life back together, little sister.”

Michael looked over at Halla’s parents. Her dad’s eyes were red and his arm was wrapped around her mother’s shoulders. She was freely crying and he felt a pang of regret at how he had talked to her.

“I’ve tried.” She worried the little star pendant between her thumb and finger. “I can’t forget that night. I’m so sorry. So incredibly sorry for what I did to you.”

He held his arms out to her. “Come here. Give me a hug.”

The tears dripped off her face as she bent to her brother. His hands were clad in the leather gloves he used to protect his hands against the rough rubber of his wheelchair’s wheels and one of them grabbed a handful of her hair as the other one closed around the slender gold chain and yanked. The necklace cut into her neck and then snapped and he threw her backward. Her hip crashed into the hearth before landing on her ass, her hand covering the place on her head he had pulled her hair.

“You don’t get to wear this, Halla,” Patrek yelled. “You don’t get to wear this and think it makes everything okay. You got your life back and what do I get? A half life in this fucking wheelchair. You being sober doesn’t fix anything for me. Everyone’s proud of you and feels sorry for me, and all I am to you is a morality play, a reminder not to drink because you don’t want anyone else to end up like me. You’ve turned me into a warning label, and that’s never going to go away, no matter how long you wear this damn necklace.” He brandished it at her before he threw it into the fire.

Halla reached for it and then yanked her hand back as the tiny hairs on her arm curled in the heat. She slowly got to her feet and looked around the room at everyone staring at them and then ran for the door.

Michael looked around the room as the door slammed shut, expecting someone in her family to intervene. Her parents looked stunned and everyone else averted their gaze. He shook his head and strode over to Patrek like a rampant stag. “It’s one thing to be pissed at her for something she did, but you’re pissed at her for something she can’t change but would if she could. She would give up me, she would give up Cambridge, she would give up the ability to see the stars in the sky if it meant she could change what happened that night. So maybe you should stop being such a bastard and make the best out of the chances you have left, just like she did, instead of sitting there wallowing in your own misery and pain.”

He stormed out of the room, shocked faces turning silently to follow him, and headed for the door. He yanked his mobile from his pocket and rang Halla as he opened the front door. He had no idea how far she’d gotten already, but since she was on foot, he was fairly certain he could chase her down before she got too far.

He heard her phone ringing and turned towards the sound. She was standing a few meters away under a big leafless willow tree, hugging herself against the cold. His anger drained away in an instant upon seeing her. “You’re not running very fast.”

She turned her head towards him. “I’m not running at all.” She tried to smile but wasn’t completely successful. “Running doesn’t fix anything, remember? It just hurts people. It hurts you. I had to get out of there for a few minutes, though.” She rubbed her hand against her neck and Michael saw a dark smear against her pale skin when she took her hand away.

He pulled her hair away from her skin. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, the clasp on the necklace managed to dig in good before he tore it free.” There was a raw red line marking the entire side of her throat.

He hissed in a breath. “I don’t have anything to clean it with. Can you wait just a minute? I’ll go get something from inside.”

“Will you just…I need…I need a hug. Will you hug me please?”

“Of course.”

He was still holding her several minutes later, his head bent and kissing the top of her head, when Sören came out, carrying their coats. “Dad says you two can just take off without feeling guilty. You’ve provided your fair share of drama for Mum’s family to pick over for the next year.”

Michael reached for their jackets when Halla said, “No.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “No. Running away doesn’t fix anything. He’s kept me away from my family long enough. Sören loves me and Dad loves me and Mum loves me in her own weird way, and Patrek’s kept me away from people who love me for too long. If he’s uncomfortable, he can leave.”

Michael looked from Halla to Sören who shrugged. “Sounds good by me. I’ve missed you being around as much. And Erlin misses her Auntie Halla.”

“You have a niece?” Halla had never really talked about her family much for understandable reasons.

“Surprise!” She smiled guiltily. “And two nephews. You want to go meet them?”

“I would love to.”

“They have seen X-Men: First Class, so if they run screaming from you, that’s why,” Soren said.

Michael laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned to Halla whose neck bore a coagulating line of blood. “Can we please get you a plaster for your neck at some point?”

“I guess.” She rolled her eyes like a sullen teenager.” If you want to be all boring and adult about things.” She couldn’t keep up the attitude and started giggling.

The three of them headed back into the house together. “Oh, and Halla, Mum made those little bacon avocado roll things.”

“Seriously? Well, you go steal a plate of them while Michael plays doctor, and then we’ll meet you upstairs with the kids. Sound like a plan?”

“Just don’t take too long playing doctor or I’ll eat them all myself.”

“Don’t worry; Michael loves bacon more than he loves me. He’ll be fast.”

Halla sat on the bathroom counter as Michael cleaned the cut on her neck. She grimaced at the cold sting of the medicine.

“You know, Halla, I do love you more than bacon.”

She giggled. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Michael smiled as he dried her neck with a fluffy green towel. “Loving someone more than bacon is a pretty big step for most men.”

“And one giant leap for you.”

He chuckled and peeled back the wrapper on the plaster. “You can turn anything into a space reference, can’t you?”

“How about this? My love for you is like the moon. It will shine on you in dark times, and even when you can’t see it, it’s still there.”

He gazed at her for several seconds before he carefully applied the plaster to her neck and then kissed her skin. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“I thought it would be better than, ‘My love for you is like Pluto. Small, insignificant and frozen into a lifeless chunk of rock.”

He laughed, all of his teeth showing. “Yeah, the moon one was better.”

She hopped down off the counter. “How about, ‘My love for you is like the sun? The center of your universe, full of gas, and destined to destroy all life.’”

“I think you should stop while you’re ahead.”

She started giggling as they left the washroom. “My love is like Uranus, dark, lopsided –,” 

He kissed her before she could finish. “Your love is my moon.”

She blushed and ducked her head. “And I am held in your orbit. Moons don’t run away. Ever.”


	11. 25 December 2014

_Thursday_

Michael laid on the bed, wondering what in the world Halla was doing in the bathroom for so long. He punched the pillows into shape once more and laid down again, trying to get comfortable on the unfamiliar hotel bed. He should be used to unfamiliar beds by now. He had spent so little time in his own bed over the past few years that  _it_  should be the unfamiliar one. But over the last few months his bed had become the one with Halla in it, regardless of its location.

“Baby, what are you doing in there?”

She popped out of the bathroom and stood at the foot of the bed, her hands on her hips. He assumed she was trying to look imposing, but the effect was undercut by the lime green floral and lace bralette she was wearing along with orange and white striped knickers. “Have my ears  _always_  been this big?”

“Your ears?”

“Look at them!” She pointed with both hands. “I’ve got monstrously large earlobes. Why did no one ever tell me I look like an elephant?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “You’ve been in there for twenty minutes staring at your  _earlobes_?” This was a new one for him on the list of strange things women did in front of a mirror.

“They’re quite compelling once you realize the enormity of them. I could paint them orange and use them to land aircraft!” She stuck her fingers behind her ears and wiggled them.

“I am fairly certain that you’ve gone insane.”

She stepped up onto the bed, bounced across it to where he was, and then jumped up and landed on her bum next to him. “Perhaps. Always a possibility.”

The bed felt more comfortable now. “You seemed to get along well with my sister.”

“She’s brilliant! And your parents are so nice. You have a really lovely family.”

He trailed a finger over the plaster on her neck. “We have our moments. Try and keep it together in front of company at least.”

“Yeah, whatever. Did you know your mum showed me your baby pictures?”

“She did not!”

She nodded, her eyes alight with glee. “Yep. When you and your dad went to the market. And the ones from when you were in a band.” She could barely contain her laughter and her cheeks pinked with the effort.

Michael closed his eyes and let himself sink into the bedding in surrender. The politest thing to say about the photos of his misspent band days was that he had aged well. “Well, that means she likes you. She doesn’t show the photos to just anyone.”

“She must like me. She fed me until I thought I was going to burst.” She flopped back on the bed and puffed out her belly. “Look, I have a food baby.”

Michael laughed and poked the hard arc of her stomach. “That’s hardly a food baby. I think you must have a hollow leg or something to store everything you eat.”

Halla giggled and rubbed her hands over her tummy. “It’s my food baby. Cute little food baby,” she cooed. “Seriously, though, your mum can cook. Why can’t you cook like that?”

He shrugged. “Never learned.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I love you more than food or I would just stay here with your parents and let you go back to London all by your lonesome.” She shifted so she could rest her head on his thigh.

 “She’d let you stay, you know. You and your out of wedlock food baby.” He placed his hand on the warm soft skin of her stomach.

“I know. I can’t believe your parents bought me a Christmas present.” She yawned, tired from the long day of Christmas festivities and the stress of meeting Michael’s family. Even as wonderful as they all were, it had still been exhausting. She closed her eyes, lulled into a stupor by the feel of Michael’s hand idly rubbing over her stomach.

Michael’s hand eventually stilled and she opened her eyes, wanting to move into a more comfortable position before she actually fell asleep and gave herself a crick in her neck. She started to stretch but stopped as she saw Michael staring at her stomach, his brow furrowed but with a hint of a smile sliding around the edges of his mouth.

“What are you thinking about?”

He started, as if she had jolted him back to reality from where it was he had been, lost in his head in an imaginary land far away. “Nothing.”

Her chin lowered and she glared at him over the top of a pair of invisible glasses.

He scratched his cheek, his nails loud against the rough of his beard. “Promise not to freak out?”

A muscle twitched in Halla’s jaw.  Her pupils widened in response to the adrenaline that her adrenal glands had dumped into her system and the bottom of her feet itched. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, mentally walking herself through the relaxation routine her therapist had worked on with her. “I promise.” The words came out slowly, like she was pulling them from a jar of molasses.

Michael was fairly certain this was going to be bad. “I was wondering what you would look like with an actual baby in there. Not just a food one.”

She stared at him blank faced for several seconds, her expression frozen.

“Halla?”

She blinked. “I am not freaking out.” Her voice sounded strangled. “I am just going to go get my robe and put it on.”

Michael watched her scurry off the bed and over to the table where she had placed the presents she had received that morning and she wrapped herself in midnight blue silk embroidered with stars. It reassured him that she would swathe herself in his gift to have this conversation. All things considered, she had responded fairly well, since he had freaked himself out when the thought of her pregnant had intruded on his musings of how much he loved the feel of her skin.

She rejoined him on the bed, sitting on the far distant edge of the mattress, tucking her robe around her folded legs so none of her skin showed.  Her fingers twisted together in her lap like a Celtic knot. “You were saying?”

He scratched his cheek again, trying to hide a smile. Three months ago she would have been on a different continent by now. She was still freaking out inside, but her fight or flight instinct seemed to have relaxed into a sit quietly and hyperventilate response. “I was trying to imagine what you would look like pregnant. You’re short enough that I think it would all have to go out in front, like you were smuggling a football under your shirt.”

She pulled the robe tighter around her stomach and began to play connect the dots with the stars. “And, um, how intense is your curiosity?” she asked the alien she had just drawn on her thigh.

“What are you asking?”

She closed her eyes and her hand stilled in its travels across the silken sky. “Are you saying you want to have a baby?”

“No! No. I mean, someday yes, but right now, no.” He paused and looked at her for a few seconds. “Do you?”

“Someday.” She glanced up at him. “Not tonight or anything.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

They looked at each other in awkward silence until she went back to the fabric galaxy spread over her lap. Michael watched her avoid looking at him as she continued to touch the silver threads of the stars. He waited for her to relax a bit more and when her shoulders had retreated from her ears, he spoke again. “You looked pretty cute pregnant though.”

Her eyes flew up to his and this time it was her eyes that widened, not her pupils. “I did?”

He grinned at her, hiding the intensity with which the image of her pregnant had seared itself into his memory. “Yeah. With one of my shirts stretched over your belly and pink leggings.”

Halla tried to imagine herself pregnant. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as she had thought it would be. “And I’d have actual breasts while I was pregnant, too.”

Michael’s head tilted and he raised a reproachful eyebrow at her. “Do we need to have the talk again?”

“Which talk?”

“The ‘I love your breasts’ talk?”

The mischief was back in her eyes, having replaced the earlier panic. “I don’t know. That’s kind of a fun talk to have. I like it when you give hands on examples. It helps me learn better.”

He held out an arm to her. “Get your little butt over here so I can hold you.”

She smiled and crawled across the mattress so she could snuggle into him. He wrapped his arms around her and she sighed as her body completely relaxed into his warmth.

“You going to sleep in that robe tonight?”

She nodded. “I’ve never had a robe custom made for me before.”

“Why do you think it’s custom made?”

She pushed herself up enough so she could see his face. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the stars?”

He couldn’t fight back the smile. “Notice what about the stars?” He had wondered how long it would take her.

“That they’re embroidered to show the night sky on the night of my birth. And not just any night sky, but the sky over Reykjavik where I was born?”

“Well, I knew you needed a new robe and I thought, ‘Go big or go home,’ you know? You’re the one who taught me that the sky has different stars on different nights.”

“You definitely went big, Fassbender. But then, you always do.” She giggled as he flipped her over onto her back.

“Shall I go big again?” He untied the sash around her currently flat stomach.

She nodded happily. “And teach me why you love my breasts while you’re at it.”


	12. 9 January 2015

_Oh god._ Halla leaned her forehead against the dressing room wall.  _Like shopping for jeans wasn’t bad enough, this had to happen._  She gritted her teeth and yanked at the tiny metal tab again but it still wouldn’t budge. “Damnit,” she cursed under her breath. She bit her bottom lip, counted to three and yanked again but her hand slipped and smacked against the mirror.

“Fuck!”

There was a knock at the door. “Baby, is everything alright?” Michael asked from the other side.

“No, everything is not alright! The stupid zipper on these jeans is stuck and I can’t get them off.”

“Would madam care for some assistance?”

She could hear the laughter in his voice.  _Bastard._ “Either that or a pair of scissors,” she yelled back, too frustrated to be polite.

He opened the door to the changing room and she stepped back to let him in. Halla crossed her arms over her chest, recognizing the foolishness of her action but keenly aware that the boring white cotton bra she was wearing looked like something for a twelve year old. She wouldn’t even have bothered to wear one, but it was cold outside and she wanted an extra layer between her nipples and the freezing wind.  

“Well, let’s see what we have here,” he murmured and Halla sighed, his soft voice soothing away some of the irritation.

Michael sat on the padded bench and placed his hands on Halla’s hips and tugged her in between his knees. He folded over the fly of the jeans and leaned forward, peering intently at the stuck zipper as his mouth twisted to the side. He grabbed the metal tab and tried pulling the slider up and down but it wouldn’t move in either direction.

“I’m sorry to say this darling, but you are well and truly stuck. I don’t suppose you fancy these jeans enough to wear them for the rest of your life?”

“Not really, no. There are some rather pleasurable activities I engage in that would necessitate their removal.”

He grinned like the cat that had eaten the canary. “Well, let’s see of what assistance I can be in your hour of need.” The zipper had lowered about two inches before it ground to a halt and he yanked on both sides of the fabric, hoping to jar it loose. Nothing happened and he shook his head. “I’ll be right back.” He placed a kiss on her stomach and then left.

Halla debated the ridiculousness of putting her shirt back on but before she could finish that mental argument with herself he was back with a pair of pliers in one hand and scissors in the other. “This should do it.”

He sat back down on the bench and waved her over to him again, gesturing with the pliers. “Come here, baby. Don’t be afraid.”

Halla stepped back in between his knees. She wasn’t afraid. Well, maybe of the pliers and scissors, but not of him. There was a devilish glint in his eyes that matched the smirk on his face but it didn’t make her afraid. He slipped his hand into her jeans, the back of his fingers brushing against her stomach.  _Definitely not afraid._  Not with the feel of his fingers brushing against her knickers.

“Just making sure I don’t accidentally hurt you. Wouldn’t want to leave a mark on such lovely skin.”

 _Yep. Definitely not afraid. Nope nope nope_. That wasn’t fear that was making her heart beat faster or the blood rush in her ears. His hand pushed against her stomach as he manipulated the zipper and she could feel the tiny golden hairs on the back of his hand brush against her skin. His knuckles dug into her stomach and then slid down as he held the fabric out, dragging her knickers with them and coming to a rest right above her pelvic bone.

Michael clamped the pliers onto the pull tab and yanked but the zipper didn’t budge. He gritted his teeth and yanked at the tab one more time but there still wasn’t any movement. “I think we’re going to have to cut you out of those.” He put down the pliers and picked up the scissors. “Trust me?”

“Uhhhh.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.” He slipped the cold metal blade in between Halla’s stomach and the jeans and she watched the muscles in his forearms flex as he squeezed the sharp edges together through the thick layers of fabric at the waist as he held it taut away from her. The metallic zhish of the scissors slicing through the fabric caused goose bumps to break out on her arms and he cut a few more times to match the length of the zipper. The jeans loosened across her hips as he finished, the metal blade now running over her knickers and she sighed in relief.

“There we go, all fixed.” He stood up quickly and Halla didn’t bother to move back. “Would you like me to get you another pair to try on, or has your traumatic experience set you against them?”

Halla giggled and looked up at him, craning her neck. “Maybe in a different brand.”

“I’ll see what I can find you.”

Halla finished shimmying out of the destroyed jeans and hung them over the door to the dressing room and then decided to add the other pairs of jeans she had tried on and discarded and that shirt that had looked adorable on the mannequin but horrible on her. The dressing room door popped open and she crossed her arms over her body in a panic. Michael just laughed.

“A few more pairs for you to try and,” he held out his hand which had several hangers hooked over a long finger, “some bras. Breasts that beautiful deserve something more lovely than that thing to showcase them.

She hesitantly reached for the hangers. “I didn’t think you’d noticed my bra.”

“I’m not a corpse.”

She glanced down and could see his proof of life pressed against the front of his jeans and snaking down one leg. “And which of these brassieres do you recommend the most?”

He grinned and pulled the dressing room door shut behind him. “Start with this one.” He held out a black lace number that had cups so tiny they looked like they would barely reach her nipples, much less cover them.

She turned around so her back was to him. “Help?”

His fingers trailed across her shoulder blades before they settled on the clasp of her bra and unhooked it. His hands closed over her shoulders and slid the straps of her bra down her arms and she let it fall to the floor.  He held out the black bra and she slipped her arms through the straps and he hooked it. “Now, you have to make sure everything’s in place.” He reached over her shoulder and slipped his hand inside the cup and grabbed her breast. He pulled it up and settled it into the cup and then withdrew his hand, his fingers sliding over her nipple. It hardened under his touch and he turned his attention to her other breast. His hand slid inside the cup and he squeezed the gentle swell of flesh. His palm glided across her nipple in a slow circle before he adjusted her breast so it was sitting correctly. He slowly removed his hand as he watched her in the mirror. Her lips parted to ease her breathing and he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger before removing his hand.

“There, much better,” he murmured against her ear and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as a shiver of electricity arced down her nerves. Her eyes were captivated by the way he was watching her in the mirror, at the way his eyes keep dropping from hers to gaze at her nipples, prominent against the delicate lace of the bra. “You really do have beautiful breasts.”

She turned her head towards him and his mouth closed over hers. His tongue swept against her lips and she opened to him and he slid his hand back inside her bra, teasing her nipple with sharp little tugs and long smooth caresses. She wrapped her arm around the back of his neck as his warm kisses left her gasping for breath.

Michael slid his other hand across her stomach and he brushed over the fabric of her knickers. She shoved her hips forward, pressing against his hand and his smile curved against her jaw. His fingers slid inside the soft cotton and pressed against her damp skin as he placed a wet kiss against her throat. She grabbed his thigh to steady herself as her hips bucked forward again. He stroked his fingers over her, letting them glide back and forth repeatedly before he pressed harder and his middle finger slipped between and then inside her.

Her head fell back against his chest with a breathy moan and he whispered, “Hush,” against her throat. She tried to be quiet but it was proving impossible with the way he was sliding his finger in and out of her. He dragged his finger up to brush against her clit and she bit her lips together to keep from moaning.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whimpered as he began to circle her clit.

“We’re fine, baby,” he murmured as her hips rocked against his hand. “We’re just going to have to be quiet.”

She gasped as he pinched her clit and tugged. “What if someone,” she moaned and her eyes fell back in her head as his fingers swirled over the little nub, “what if someone sees me?”

Michael’s hand faltered in its movements and then he stopped. “I would never expose you that way, Halla.”

Halla opened her eyes to find Michael gazing down at her. Lines furrowed his forehead.

She blinked several times and then looked away from him. “I know that,” she whispered. “I do. I just can’t get my memories to shut off completely yet.”

Michael removed his hands from her underthings and turned her around. He bent so he was looking her in the eyes. “Please tell me when you’re uncomfortable. I never want you to feel like you aren’t completely safe with me.”

“I just…,” she dropped her head, “I’m trying. I’m just not there yet.”

“Baby,” his fingers stroked up her neck and then pressed against the delicate skin under her chin, lifting her face to look at him, “not wanting to do this isn’t a sign that something’s wrong or you haven’t healed. I think most people would worry a bit about getting caught doing something like this.”

Her eyes closed and he could see a tear at the corner of one eye. “But you want to. And I want to be able to give you what you want.”

“Love, if I got what I wanted all the time we would never get out of bed except to race motorcycles or really fast cars. You don’t worry about me. I’m an adrenaline junkie and you’re not and I have other ways to meet that need that don’t involve making you do something you don’t want to. So,” he kissed her forehead, “you finish trying on those jeans, and keep that bra on because I’m tossing the one you were wearing along with the jeans we destroyed, and then we’ll go home and see if we want to pick things up where we left off, alright?”

She picked up her bra and held it behind her back. “You are not throwing my bra away.”

“Yes, I am. You deserve bras that make you look the like woman you actually are and not the twelve year old you imagine in your head.”

Her lips firmed into a fine line but she finally held out her old bra. “Fine, but you’re buying them, because I budgeted for a new pair of jeans, and I don’t have the money for expensive bras right now.”

“Deal.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose and then pulled the price tag off of the bra she was wearing. “Now, I’m going to go sit out there again so I don’t distract you anymore.”

It was an hour and a half later when they finally got home, Halla carrying the bag containing her new jeans which she had insisted on paying for herself and a separate bag with several new grown up lady bras, as she called them, which Michael had purchased. She did have to admit they looked very pretty on, and did make her feel more like a woman than the ones she usually wore. She placed the bags on the entry table before she turned to Michael and stood on her tip toes to slide her arms around his neck. “So, where were we?”

He closed one hand over her bum and lifted her. Halla grabbed his back and she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist as he started walking.

“Show-off,” she muttered.

He simply grinned and carried her to their bedroom. She pulled at his white shirt and pulled it off over his head as he knelt over her undoing her well-worn jeans. He pulled her purple zebra knickers with them and then her fingers were on the buttons of his jeans as he reached for her shirt. Their hands clashed over priority but eventually they got each other’s clothes off, though Michael left Halla’s bra on her and grabbed her hands when she reached behind herself to undo the hooks.

“Leave it on.”

Halla laughed but then he bent his head to her breast and licked her nipple through the sheer black lace. Her fingers scratched over his scalp as she tried to grab handfuls of hair that weren’t there since his latest cut. Instead she clutched at his shoulders as he sucked a mouthful of her flesh, rubbing the lace against her nipple with his tongue.  Her nails left crescent moons in his skin as he slipped a hand between her legs and found her clit again. She was still wet from his earlier touches and he plunged his middle finger back inside her.

Halla moaned and arched up against him, hooking her leg around his hip. He shifted his mouth to her other breast, continuing to roll her hard nipple against the damp lace with his fingers. Her body undulated under him as she tried and failed to focus on one of the sources of the pleasure ricocheting through her body. His teeth on her breast, the rasp of wet lace against her nipple, the stroke of his finger against her g-spot, and then he added his thumb to her clit and she bit down on her lip to keep from swearing.

Michael could feel the tension building in her delicate body. Her hips thrust up and her foot dug into his arse as she held herself up closer to his caressing hand. He kissed her again, prodding her mouth open with his tongue and finding hers ready to meet him. She bit his lips with a savage grace as she ground her hips against his hand. He pressed another finger inside her and her head fell back, exposing the line of her throat to his mouth. The flutter of her pulse vibrated under her skin and he scattered kisses over her sweet skin as he thrust his fingers with a perfect curve into her body.

“Fuck, Michael!” she cried as his thumb sped in tight circles over her clit.

He nipped at the curve of her shoulder, fighting back the fierce possessiveness he felt deep in his belly. She was brilliant and talked of things he would never comprehend, but here, reduced to her most basic understanding, she wanted him more than anything. “Come for me, baby.”

Her fevered eyes focused on his face for a moment before they lapsed back into a pleasure-fueled delirium. Her cheeks were almost the same pink as her lips as her body arched again, her shoulders pressing into the mattress as she held herself balanced on the blades of her back and her feet digging into his arse. Her breath was coming in little pants and her teeth looked like pearls as they sank into the side of her bottom lip.

The tremor that shot through her thigh vibrated against his hip and he kissed her throat again. “That’s right baby. Come for me, Halla.”

Halla couldn’t have resisted his request even if she wanted to. His fingers touched her perfectly, the sweet friction building a fire that was about to explode. His thumb moved over her clit and his nail scraped against the throbbing nerves and she cried his name as her vision blurred and all she could feel was the explosion at her core that sent her body supernova, consuming her whole.

Michael stayed kneeling over her, his fingers slowly stroking in and out of her pussy as she returned to earth and to her body. His palm was dripping from her response and he wanted to keep her as close to the edge as possible, to watch that look of complete abandonment to pleasure creep over her face like a sunrise. His little perfectionist was under so much pressure as the deadlines piled up for her dissertation that he felt a responsibility to remove as much of the tension she had stored up inside as was possible.

Her eyes slowly opened and a smile spread across her face. “I love you, caveman.”

Michael smiled at the nickname and bent to kiss her. “I love you too, glitterbutt.”

“Now gimme your cock.”

He laughed at her smiled demand and pressed her knees back to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees as he nudged his cock against her wet pussy. “Say please.”

“Ooooh, caveman has manners.” She stuck her tongue out at him but then giggled. “Gimme your cock  _please.”_

He pressed inside her slowly. Sometimes he liked to just shove inside her with one swift motion, but right now he wanted to claim her bit by bit, to watch her respond to him and the feel of his hands on her skin as much as his cock invading her pussy. Her feet rested against his waist as he rested on his elbows on either side of her head. He began to thrust slowly, a sweet in and out that already had her whining with pleasure on each stroke. Halla worked one of her hands loose and clasped his jaw. She began to babble a half vocalized stream of fucks as he moved faster and harder.

Michael watched her like a hawk as she began to fall apart in his arms. She was his, his woman. She had nicknamed him caveman, and when it was like this, when she was wet and hot and tight around him, when her chest heaved with the effort to keep up with the pace of his movements, when he relentlessly pounded into her and her nails carved paintings into the wall of his back, that he felt like there was truth to the name. Sometimes it was slow and sweet between them, but not right now, with the drumbeat of his hips slapping against the back of her thighs and the pounding of his heart echoing in his ears. His groans were wordless lyrics and she cried out, a universally understandable sound of pleasure as her legs trembled against his chest and her toes curled. She lifted her hips from the bed, offering her body for him to take harder, deeper, faster, and then she called his name, and he wasn’t a caveman anymore. He was Michael, and it was still hard and feral and heated, but he was her Michael and she was his Halla.

“Fuck!” he yelled as he felt himself losing control.

Her pussy quivered and he smothered her lips in a kiss as he tried to hold back, to wait for her to come again. “Please, baby,” he said against her mouth and she sucked at his bottom lip as he tried to talk, “come with me now, Halla.”

Her hand shoved between them and he could feel her fingers rubbing against her clit. Her eyes rolled back, her head fell back, he sank his teeth into the delicate skin of her shoulder and she screamed, not in pain but in pleasure as her body went rigid in his arms. She cried out again and her pussy clenched around his cock and he let go, filling her with his come as she exploded into light again.

They stayed wrapped around each other, even after they both could have survived separately and Halla kept her head tucked under Michael’s chin. She giggled softly. “I think I might need to replace the nickname caveman.”

Michael wasn’t happy about this pronouncement. “With what?”

“The Big Bang.” 


	13. 15 January 2015

Michael,

Miiiiiiichael. MichaelMichaelMichael. You love sports. I love this hat. I think you should take me to that horse race that Eliza Doolittle goes to in  _My Fair Lady_  so I can wear this hat because I’m pretty sure that is the only place in the world that is appropriate for this fabulous of a hat. 

H xx

* * *

Baby,

You know I love you, and I know you love pink and space, but I think recreating the rings of Saturn out of pink feathers and wearing it on your head is a bit much. Even for Royal Ascot, which is the name of the race where Audrey Hepburn yells at the horses.

I’ll take you to the races anytime you want. Just not in that hat.

Caveman

* * *

Really? You think that hat is too much? Have you ever been to Royal Ascot? Thanks for finding the name by the way.

I shall present you with photographic evidence that the beautiful hat I want is totally appropriate.

Fairly certain that’s the same woman in all three of those. Which means they let her come back.

I’m pretty sure she just wrapped a pool noodle in fabric, tied it into a pretzel and stuck it on her head.

At least my pink feathers aren’t still on the swan.

More feathers - WITH THE BIRDCAGES!

This was probably a lovely hat until it got mauled by a flock of belligerent peacocks.

I honestly have no idea what this one is.

Pinata hat only works for Alan Cumming. There is a resemblance, but fairly certain this is not him.

Unsubtle way of sneaking in your own booze.

 

 

Another swan, you know, just in case you don’t like pink. HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE PINK?

Fairly certain this is pool noodle pretzel lady. If not, is her sister. Or maybe cousin of the golden spiral noodle lady.

So, now that I have all that photographic evidence assembled, I think you will agree that the lovely pink feathery hat which you so unjustly maligned is a perfect choice and you will gladly let me wear it.

Love you. xxoo ( o ) ( o )

HAHA

Halla

* * *

 

Halla,

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, you used to be my assistant. You would give me shit about how I was dressed and you would say, “Do you really want to be photographed wearing that?”

Well, let me ask you the same thing. Those hats are examples of ‘oh my god, I have to take a picture of this so I can impose the same searing pain on someone else’s retinas that mine are currently undergoing.’ Pink is fine. Feathers are fine. Retina pain is not fine.

Also, when’s your deadline? And don’t get all wide-eyed and innocent looking and say ‘what deadline?’ because you only get overly enthusiastic about bizarre stuff like hats at the Ascot when you’re avoiding a deadline. Last time you were going to embroider all the pillowcases.

And thanks for flashing me your boobs. You know how much I love them.

Michael

* * *

 _Fiiiiiiiine._  I will go work on my chapter revisions. They’re not due until tomorrow so I still have plenty of time.

Is this one boring enough to not induce retina pain? The feathers are so tiny you probably didn’t even notice them.

I do sort of love this one though. Very Alice Painting the Roses Red. Whimsical, but not over the top. Except it is over the top. Of her head. Because that’s where your hat goes. At least until the Queen orders someone to chop it off.

What?

Love you. ( * ) ( * )  _it’s cold in here._

* * *

Well, if you’re cold, come here and let me warm you up. Can’t say that your nipples will look any different though, but it will be from something besides cold.

I actually like the Alice hat. The top one makes you look like a fifty year old socialite (accidentally wrote socialist at first - don’t think many of those will be going to Royal Ascot, but I could be wrong). 

The Alice hat is you though. Just a good thing you’re short so I don’t have to worry about you stabbing me in the eye with the paintbrushes. I prefer another kind of stabbing altogether. Also, being the stabber and not the stabbee. 

James invited us over to tea tomorrow night. Apparently Brendan’s been asking for the space lady. When did you become favorite? I’ll have to buy him sweets and toys.

also, I think you would look beautiful in any of these:

I’m going to go drink a Guinness and watch  _Scarface_ and scratch myself now so I feel like a man again.

Miss you.

Mx

    

sources for hats [[x](http://www.guibertmillinery.com/rock-me-rococo.html)][[x](http://www.jessicabeattie.com.au/MadisonAvenue)][[x](http://www.jessicabeattie.com.au/madhattersteaparty)][[x](http://www.janetaylormillinery.com/onlinestore/millinery/summer/peony-beret-feather)]

* * *

See, you try and act all manly and stuff but deep down inside you know you love shopping for hats with me. And I adore the pink feathery one. Surprised much?

Before I go and plop down a chunk of change on that millinery confection, I do want to make sure that you realize that you will have to wear a morning suit (that’s the one with tails) and a top hat to go in the Royal Enclosure. Maybe you can borrow Ben’s costume from Sherlock when he went to John and Mary’s wedding. You two are about the same size, right?

And of course I’m Brendan’s favorite. Have you seen me? I’m amazing. Also, the last time we were there I helped him build a solar system out of clay and then we threw things at earth pretending to be a meteor shower. Three toy dinosaurs were sacrificed for the veracity of this demonstration showing how mass extinctions happen.

I’ll see you tomorrow night and hopefully we’ll have time to warm up my boobies before we go over to James’s for tea.

Love you more than Han loves Leia.

Halla xx


	14. 16 January 2015

James looked from Halla to Michael and back to Halla. It wasn’t hard on his neck as she was sitting practically in his lap as it was. “Really? He agreed to take you to Royal Ascot?”

Halla swallowed the mouthful of cherry Coke she had sipped through the red and white paper straw. She thought it adorable that James had stocked his bar with the ingredients to make cherry Cokes for when her and Michael came over. “Why does that seem so strange to you?”

“It’s  _Royal_  Ascot.”

Halla still didn’t see the point. “I know. And?”

“He’s Irish.”

“I think they’re allowed.”

James tried to turn his burst of laughter into a cough. “You think they’re allowed.”

“I mean, he has to wear a suit and a hat, but so does everyone else.”

James covered his face with his hand for a long moment. “You don’t pay attention a lot to history, do you?”

“What? Like, I know England and Ireland’s had their problems but that’s in the past.” She looked back and forth between James and Michael. “Right?”

Michael waved his hand at James to continue speaking. There were some things that Halla was surprisingly ignorant about, and history was one of them. He’d been waiting to hear James’s take on the whole Royal Ascot issue.  “You know I’m Scottish, right?”

“Yes. It’s fairly obvious.” She pointed at his shirt.

James looked down at his Scotland football jersey. “Right. This may come as a wee bit of a surprise to you, but not everyone is as infatuated with the royal family as the English.”

“It’s not about the royal family. I just want a reason to dress up and wear a fancy hat.”

Michael looked at her in confusion. “ _That’s_ what all the hat emails yesterday were about?”

She sagged back against the sofa. “Well, you’re not going to any of the awards shows this year. When else am I going to wear something fabulous?”

“Baby, you can wear fabulous clothes whenever you want.”

She rolled her eyes so hard it hurt for a second. “But like, I saw all the pictures of last year and you were in a tux and all sexy and stuff, and this year you’re blowing off all the awards shows and that means no tuxedos.”

Michael shot a quelling look at James who was doing his best not to laugh out loud.

Anne-Marie fished an ice cube of her drink and chucked it at him. “Hush. You’re just as bad. Look at you in faded jeans with holes in them.”

“They’re  _supposed_  to look like this. They’re very fashionable.”

Michael looked back at Halla. “Is this about  _me_  getting dressed up or  _you_ getting dressed up?”

“Ummmm, both?” Her nose wrinkled as she shrugged. “Like, last year I got to see you at the Globes, right? But I was your assistant so it didn’t really count and then you and Ben went and got your dance on, and I didn’t get to go do that either, and then…then Rotterdam, and I was looking forward to this year when we’d get to go to all the awards shows together and you’re not even going.” She flailed her arm at him.

“I wasn’t nominated.”

“So like they’d kick you out if you showed up or something?” She waved her glass at him. “I don’t think so.”

“Baby, I’m not one to go to the awards shows just to get my picture taken.”

“But it would be  _our_ picture.”

“Oh.” Realization dawned and he nodded. “I get it. Well,” her rubbed his hand across his chin, “I guess we can get dressed up and crash the BAFTA after-party. That’s coming up her next month.”

Halla clapped her hands. “That would be so much fun!” She turned to James and Anne-Marie. “You should come with us.”

“Oh, let’s.” Anne-Marie turned to James. “We haven’t been out dancing since Halloween.”

Michael pulled Halla closer against him and leaned in so they could talk quietly while Anne-Marie persuaded James to go to the party as well. “You going to be alright with this? Halloween didn’t go so well. Neither did that night in Rotterdam, either.”

“Well, I don’t think Rotterdam is a concern anymore, and as for Halloween, we know what caused that so we’ll just leave our naughty mouths at home and we should be fine.”

He raised both eye-brows as he stroked her cheek. “You sure? Because I can find something else for us to dress up for.”

“I’ll be fine. Really. And if things get a little dicey for me, I’ll let you know, alright?”

He nodded and then his smile got a little wicked. “You know, any time you feel like dressing up for me, just let me know.” His arm dropped so his hand was now clasping her bum.

She slapped him on the arm even as she laughed. “This isn’t about that, you giant horn dog.”

“I know. But I’m just letting you know that it’s an open invitation.” He squeezed her bum as he leaned in to kiss her.

James interrupted. “Are you two children behaving or am I going to have to put you in the time out corner?”

“Can we go to the time out corner together?” Michael tore his eyes away from Halla to look at James.

“No. Separate corners for each of you.”

Michael rolled his eyes even harder than Halla had. “Then we’ll behave,” he sulked.

Anne-Marie shook her head at the man-children. “How did Christmas go? You met the parents, Halla?”

“They’re so nice. And his mother is an amazing cook and his sister is brilliant. We chatted about graduate school and she gave me some advice on the writing process and she promised to come to my graduation party if Michael throws one for me.”

Michael sat up. “She did what?”

Halla turned to face Michael. “She said she’d fly over if you throw a party for me.”

“She didn’t tell me that.”

“Well, she told _me_  that.”

He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “So commencement’s what, May?”

“Like the giant calendar I have hanging in the office with the date circled on it isn’t a hint? Yes, May.”

“Alright, so party in May for graduation, party in April for birthday, February is the after-party, and then later this month is your one year anniversary, and I think that deserves a bit of a celebration as well.”

Halla grimaced as he listed off all of their engagements. “I don’t need all those parties.”

“I know. But you’re going to have them. You like dressing up, right?”

She knew better to argue with him when he got it in his head to do something for her. “I’m throwing you a birthday party as well, then.”

Anne-Marie cut in. “Why don’t  _we_  throw you  _both_ a party for your birthdays, and then you can enjoy it rather than being hosts?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Anne-Marie waved away Halla’s objection. “It’s no bother. And besides the last thing you’re going to want to be doing is planning a birthday party with all the school stuff you’ll be doing.”

“Are you sure?

“Yes, because if I throw a party then I get to attend and James has to come whether he wants to or not.”

Halla laughed. “Alright, then. I think I’m going to have to get a new dress if I’m going to be this much of a socialite.” She put a hand on Anne-Marie’s arm. “Do you want to go shopping together?”

“Yes! It will be so much fun.”

“OOOooh, can Michael and I come?” James asked.

Anne-Marie started laughing. “You two want to come shopping with us?”

“Well, you’re not the only one who needs a new dress,” Michael answered.

Halla spit out her drink as she laughed and instantly covered her mouth. Cola dripped off of her hand. Michael started laughing and ran into the kitchen to get a tea towel for her. As she cleaned herself off, Anne-Marie asked, “You two going to do drag for the BAFTA?”

“She did say she wanted a picture of us. I guarantee if I wear a dress, there’ll be more pictures than she’ll know what to do with.”

Halla snorted. “Fine, but you’re going to have to get your own heels. You’ll never fit in mine.”

“Oh please. You and I are about the same size. I’m sure I can find something of yours to squeeze into.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She leaned in and kissed him. “But you boys can come and carry our bags.”

James’s eyes narrowed. “Is this going to be one of those film montage kinds of shopping sprees where Michael and I’ll be running into things because we can’t see over the stack of parcels?”

“We could even get you guys those chauffeur suits if you want,” Anne-Marie offered, laughing as she picked up another biscuit from the half-empty plate on the coffee table.

“Oh,” Halla bounced on her seat, “and we should get a couple of those really elegant looking dogs and have them on leashes.”

“Elegant dogs? Like poodles or something?” James asked.

“No, the ones that look like they belong in a commercial for Italian perfume.”

“That does not help me at all.” He looked at Michael. “You?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea what she’s on about.”

Halla looked back and forth between them. “You know. In  _Guys and Dolls,_  the dog that the guy feeds the hot dog to and then eats the bun. During the opening song about doing it for a dame.”

“That’s a poodle,” Michael said.

“No it’s not,” Halla quickly replied.

Michael held up both hands as his eyebrows rose. “Oh, babygirl’s gonna challenge me on my film knowledge?”

“Yes. I do know about some things other than space.”

Michael laughed and took a swig of his beer. “What’s the wager? Pick something you feel like paying because you’re going to lose.”

Halla crossed her arms over her chest. “If I’m right and it’s  _not_  a poodle, then you actually have to come carry our bags while we shop and not whinge about it.”

“Alright. And if I’m right and it  _is_ a poodle, then  _you_  have to…” he stopped and looked at James and Anne-Marie and leaned over and whispered in her ear. Halla’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed. He sat back. “Agreed?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter since you’re going to lose.”

Michael shook his head slowly. “Oh no, Halla, you may know more about space than me but you’re going down on this one.”

“That’s not what the bet was for.” She almost managed to get it out with a straight face but dissolved into giggles on the last word.

“Very funny.” He squeezed her closer. “Do you agree?”

“Sure. Someone got a laptop or something?”

“Just a second.” Anne-Marie went into the other room and came back with her iPad. She quickly pulled up the song in question and they all crowded around the screen to see what dog would appear. A minute in, Halla groaned as Michael cheered.

“ _That’s_  a poodle,” James said.

Halla flopped back against the sofa and threw her hands up in the air as Michael continued doing his victory dance. “Then what dog am I thinking of?”

“I have no idea,” James laughed, “and I really don’t think that googling ‘Italian perfume ad dog’ is going to help.”

“Google ‘skinny dog’ and see what happens,” Halla said.

Anne-Marie typed in the words and Halla stabbed her sparkly fingernail at the screen. “That one. That dog. What is that?”

“That’s a whippet,” Anne-Marie read.

“Whip it, good!” Michael and James both sang back in unison.

Halla bounced on the sofa again and started clapping her hands.

“Are you alright, baby?”

“Karaoke!” She patted his arm frantically.

“What?”

“Can we have a karaoke birthday party?” she asked Anne-Marie.

“You want a karaoke birthday party?”

“Yesssssss. It will be fantastic.” She turned to Michael and clasped her hands together. “Can we? Pleaaaaase? I’ll let you pick next year.”

Michael was laughing by this point. “You gonna sing sober?”

“Yessssss.” Her eyes were bright, almost manic. “This is going to be so much fun. And you and James can sing ‘Whip It.’”

“If it means that much to you, then yes. We can have a karaoke birthday party.”

She flung her arms around his neck, overbalancing and practically falling into his lap in the process. “I love you! You are the best! Boyfriend! Ever!”

Michael laughed and kissed her. “How many biscuits have you had tonight?”

“Fourteen. But that’s not why I’m excited.” She shook her head and her hair flared around her. “I’ve always wanted a karaoke party.”

“Well then, we better get to planning.” He looked at Anne-Marie. “One karaoke birthday party coming up.”


	15. Memory and Film - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read Memory and Film as part of "In the Meanwhile..." I moved it over here because this is where it fits in their main story.

23 January 2015 - Six pm

Michael knew Halla was home from Cambridge when he walked in the door. Her pink Wellies were tucked against the wall and her small purse sat next to them. Music drifted down the stairs and he followed it to its source, the open door of their shared office.

He stuck his head in the office to see Halla sitting with one foot tucked up under her thigh, typing rapidly. “Hey, baby.” Her greeting was a distracted grunt. He walked up behind her. “I don’t even get a welcome home kiss?”

She tilted her head, angling her cheek towards him while keeping her eyes fixed on the monitor. Her fingers never stopped dancing across the keyboard.

Michael’s brow furrowed as he leaned over and placed a kiss on her cheek. “You seem rather preoccupied.”

“Sorry,” she still didn’t look at him, “I’m just on a roll and I want to get this all out before I forget any of it or the mojo goes away.”

Michael stroked his hand over her shoulder as he looked at the combination of multisyllabic words and complex equations filling up the monitor. “Alright. Well come downstairs when you’re done.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and left, pausing in the doorway to look at her in confusion before he headed back downstairs.

A few hours later he called up the stairs, “What do you want for dinner?”

“I’m not really hungry. Go ahead and order without me,” she yelled back.

The tiny seed of worry that her earlier behavior had planted in his stomach stretched for the sun and bloomed in his chest. Halla not hungry was an impossibility; she was avoiding him. He scratched his beard as he wondered what to do about it. At least she wasn’t running, but if he pushed for an explanation would she run? Should he just wait for her to say something? They had been fine Thursday morning when he had come back to London and he had no idea what had transpired in the last thirty-six hours that would be making her behave like this.

He left her alone and ordered takeaway and when the food arrived, made a plate to take up to her. He added a bottle of water and eating utensils and quietly entered the office. She was still typing away and didn’t look up as he set the food next to her. “In case you change your mind.”

“Thanks.” Still no eye contact.

He left when she made no further move to interact with him. Fifteen minutes later he walked by the office and the plate was empty. He retrieved it and brought it back refilled with more Chinese food and a packet of her favorite biscuits. Her fingers stopped their relentless motion across the keyboard as he set the food down and she reached over and almost touched his hand. Her fingertips brushed against the fine hairs on its back and she murmured, “Thank you.”

He placed a gentle kiss on top of her head, making sure not to spear himself on one of the many pens she had stuck in her hair. At least she was initiating contact – almost contact, his brain corrected him – but even almost contact was improvement.

A few hours later he re-entered the office. “You need to take a break, baby. You’ve been at this non-stop for at least five hours. Your eyes must be killing you.” He started to rub her shoulders but she shrugged them up almost to her ears and he stopped, letting his hands fall helplessly to his sides. “You normally like it when I do that for you after you’ve been writing.”

“Normally, yes. Just…,” she hesitated. “Not right now.” Her voice was as stiff as her spine.

He crossed his arms across his chest. “Why not?”

“I don’t know; I just don’t want you touching me.”

Michael spun her chair around and squatted down so they were on eye level. “What’s going on, baby?”

Halla picked at a hangnail on her thumb, refusing to look at him. “Nothing.”

“You not wanting me to touch you is not nothing. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Can’t I just want to like, not have you all over me? I mean, it is my body, right? I’m allowed to set boundaries over who can and can’t touch my body, right?”

Michael stood up and backed away. “Of course.” He raised his hands, showing her his empty palms. He had no idea what had triggered it, but he recognized her behavior from descriptions in the book he had read on recovering from sexual abuse. Her memories were clawing just under the skin for some reason and her defensive mechanisms had ratcheted into place. “I’ll just leave you alone, then.”

She slumped in her chair. “I’ll…I’ll be down in a minute, okay? I just need to save the stuff I’ve been working on.”

“Don’t take too long or you’ll miss Graham Norton. Do you want me to make popcorn?” A peace offering to smooth over whatever was going on between them.

She shook her head. “I’ll just have the rest of the biscuits.”

When Halla made it downstairs, waiting until the last possible moment before Graham Norton started, she curled up at the opposite end of the sofa from where Michael was sitting. She’d brought down her bottle of water, two books, and the box of biscuits and placed them on the cushion between the two of them before she pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa and curled up in it, covering herself from her toes to her chin. Every once in a while her hand would sneak out from her cocoon to pluck another cookie from the box, but she kept her eyes fixed on the telly. As the program progressed she began to pull the pens from her hair and add them to the pile of goods between the two of them. When she yanked the throw pillow out from behind her and added it to the stack, Michael could no longer hold back the irritation that was causing his jaw to tighten and his teeth to grind.

“You don’t have to build a barricade, baby. I said I’d leave you alone.”

Her hand vanished back inside the blanket. “I’m sorry.”

“Can you tell me what triggered this? I know something must have happened but I don’t know what.” He reached over to touch her out of habit but she flinched away from his hand.

“I’m just having a bad day, alright?”

Michael shook his head and surged to his feet. “This is more than a bad day, Halla. You promised you’d let me help, remember? I can’t help if I don’t know what the problem is.”

“I don’t think you can help this time,” she whispered into the blanket.

He squatted down in front of her. “Why not?”

“Because you’re the problem.”

He rocked back on his heels. “What do you mean?”

“I finally got around to watching 12 Years a Slave last night.”

“And?” he asked when she didn’t continue.

She finally looked up at him. “And what? You were a horrible terrible person and every time I look at you I see Epps and when you touch me I feel like a piece of property and I just…I just need some time to calm down, okay?”

Michael raised himself to his full height and looked down at her, wrapped up in a blanket so he couldn’t even see her skin much less touch it. “One movie and you don’t trust me anymore?”

“It’s not like that.”

His jaw strained under the anger coursing through him. “Then what is it like, Halla? Because we’ve been together for months now, and apparently an hour of screen time can undo all of what I thought we had together.”

Her eyes flew to his. “It didn’t undo anything! I still love you. I just can’t…,” she put her head down. “I can’t look at you right now.”

The muscles in his forearms rippled as his fingers repeatedly curled into fists against his efforts to stay calm. “So what, you think I’m going to just attack you like you’re Patsey or something?”

“I don’t think you are; I feel like you are.”

His nostrils flared. “That’s fucking ridiculous, Halla.” That she wouldn’t even look at him added fuel to his barely contained anger.

“I know it is. It doesn’t make it any less true, though,” she said quietly.

“Fine.” He headed for the front door. “I’m going out and you can stay here by yourself, since obviously I’m too horrible for you to even sit next to me.”

She stood up, keeping the blanket wrapped around herself. “Michael, please don’t be like this.”

“What?” He turned and took a few sharp steps back towards her. “Don’t be offended that you think, oh sorry, that you feel like I’m a rapist? Don’t be hurt that you look at me as if I’m a rabid animal just waiting for you to drop your guard so I can attack you?”

“Take it as a compliment to your acting abilities.” She pulled the blanket tighter. “You were very believable.”

“Except you don’t think I was acting. You think that’s who I really am.”

She shook her head. “I don’t,” she pleaded.

His eyes were cold as he glared at her. “Then come here and kiss me.”

She slowly closed the distance between them and then paused.

“Well?” he demanded, his hands on his hips and his stance wide.

She screwed her eyes shut and wobbled on her tiptoes as she pursed her lips and leaned towards him. Her eyelashes trembled as she tried to kiss him but couldn’t force herself to close the final few inches.

“This is fucked up, Halla,” he muttered.

Her lips firmed into a fine white line. “You ordering me to kiss you like I’m a slave doesn’t help, Michael.”

“That’s it. I’m out for the night. Enjoy your time alone.”

Halla didn’t say anything as he picked up his keys and wallet and grabbed his coat. The door slammed shut behind him and then her tears began to fall.


	16. Memory and Film - Part Two

Saturday, 24 January, 2015 9 am

Halla rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand as she wandered into the kitchen the next morning.  She yawned so wide her jaw hurt before she plopped down at the opposite end of the kitchen table from Michael and poured herself a bowl of cereal. She added a generous spoonful of sugar before she started eating.

Michael rotated the cup of coffee in his hands over and over as he watched her ignore him. “Couldn’t even bring yourself to sleep next to me last night?”

Her spoon clanked against the side of the bowl as it fell from her fingers. “I didn’t know when you’d be home. Or in what condition. Or if you’d want me there. You were really pissed off when you left.”

“So you slept in the guest room.”

She shrugged and picked up the spoon again. “It seemed like the smartest choice at the time,” she told her cereal.

“It hurts that you don’t trust me.”

She slammed a fist on the table, causing her bowl to rattle. “Hey, I could have just up and left for Cambridge after you stormed out last night but I stayed. And I left the bedroom door not only unlocked but open. That’s as much of a show of trust as I could muster last night. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings but I had to force myself to come to London yesterday at all, okay?” She brandished the spoon at him and drops of milk flicked across the table. “And you know why I came? Because I promised you that I wouldn’t run away anymore. So I didn’t run away. I didn’t even stay away. I came to London. I came to you, because I know you love me. You’ve never…” she stumbled for words and the anger drained away. She deflated like a pricked balloon. “You’ve never been part of my past before, but watching that? I knew exactly what Patsey was feeling and now those memories have your face attached to them, and it’s taking me some time to untangle the two, alright? I’m trying, but I can only go so fast.” She dropped the spoon back into her bowl.

Michael set his mug down on the table with painstaking precision and then crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you mean? I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean about your memories have my face on them.”

“Watching the movie, watching what Patsey went through, it reminded me of what I went through.” Halla pushed her chair back from the table and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I know what it’s like to be so enslaved by an addiction that you are owned by anyone who can satisfy it. I know what it’s like to have sex with someone because I felt like I didn’t have a choice.”

Michael rested his elbows on the table as he listened to her and as she paused. She’d never told him anything but the roughest outline of what she had done in those years between losing her position at Cambridge and entering rehab. He’d sworn that it didn’t matter to him, and while he meant that, it seemed like he couldn’t escape the effect that it still had on Halla.  

“I know what it’s like to hate yourself so much, hate what’s been done to you so much that you want to die. I actually tried once.” Her eyes darted to his to take in the effect of that admission and then she returned her gaze to her kneecaps. “ And so I’m watching this movie and all of these memories are coming up and then Epps…what he did to her… My brain just smooshed my memories together with what I was seeing.”

He scratched his cheek as he thought about her explanation, his fingernails loud against his beard. “So now, when you see me, it brings up everything you went through.”

 “Right. It’s not that I actually think you’re going to do anything, but my brain just short circuits.” She made exploding noises as her hands made fireworks next to her ears. “I called my psychiatrist yesterday and she’s given me some advice about how to detangle the two things again, but she said it’s not uncommon for this to happen when you’re dealing with issues like mine. And we’ve been dealing with the sex stuff a lot lately, so it was all raw and churned up anyway.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Just give me time, and some space. I’ll probably ask you some bizarre questions off and on. I just need to detach you from my past, and you Michael from you playing Epps.”

He sat back and rubbed his beard as he watched her stirring her cereal. Her normally petite frame was folded in on itself, and she appeared almost childlike as she sat in the morning light, her hair still a mess from her sleep. Then she adjusted the neckline of the shirt she was wearing and he recognized it as one of his. He took a deep breath and let it out. She was trying. She had come to London to be with him instead of staying in Cambridge and she had slept in his shirt. He could try too.

“Alright, baby. I’m just going to let you be, then.” He stood up and took a swig of his coffee. His head ached from last night and the bright sunshine had a violent edge to it.

“Thank you for being patient with me.” She brushed her fingers against his wrist for a moment.  “This isn’t your fault, and I wish you didn’t have to deal with it. So, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Patience isn’t a virtue most people ascribe to me.”

“Well, thank you for trying to be patient with me.”

His smile was a bit forced. It still hurt that she was having this reaction to him, but at least he understood why a bit more now. He left her to her breakfast and went back upstairs.

About twenty minutes later he came back into the kitchen. Halla was pouring another bowl of cereal and looked up as he came in. He rubbed his freshly shaven chin. “I thought this might help.”

She put down the box. “You shaved. You hate shaving.”

“Yeah, well, I figured getting rid of the Epps beard might make looking at me a bit easier for you.”

She nodded as her eyelids fluttered. “Thank you. It does help.”

“I’m going to go for a ride. I think I need some fresh air. Do you need me to get anything while I’m out?”

Halla shook her head. She worried her bottom lip for a moment and then stood and hurried across the kitchen. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down enough so that she could kiss his cheek and then stepped back. “Thank you.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Text me if you change your mind about wanting me to get you anything.”

This time he did not slam the door behind him when he left and Halla did not cry.


	17. Memory and Film - Part Three

Saturday, 11 am

When Michael got home he headed straight for the shower to wash off the emotional and physical residue of the last twenty hours. He was starting to feel human again when he heard Halla say something he couldn’t decipher over the sound of the water. Michael peered around the edge of the shower enclosure to find Halla perched on the back of the toilet, painting her toenails. “What was that?”

“Say something nice about Nelson Mandela.”

“Are you serious?” He rubbed his hand against his forehead, wiping away the lather that was making its way towards his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Is this to prove I’m not a racist?”

“Just do it, okay?” She jabbed the polish brush at him and a drop of pink lacquer fell onto the white porcelain.

His eyes closed as he took a deep breath. “You know who my last two girlfriends were, right?”

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes, “but that could have been about sex like Patsey, so say something nice about Nelson Mandela.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I was acting. It was my job. I’m not actually an American slave-owner. I’m not racist, Halla.” He went back in the shower and she started yelling to be heard over the water.

“I know you were acting. I don’t think you can move metal with your mind. But like, even though it wasn’t you, it was you. But not you. But at the same time, like, it was, and it was like finding out you’re dating a serial killer or something, and I know you’re not racist or a serial killer, but like, how do you be that kind of horrible awful person and not have at some of that inside? How do you just pretend to be that vile?”

Michael gave up the hope for a relaxing shower and quickly rinsed off and then slammed the water fixture to shut it off. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips. “How do you see a planet in a spreadsheet full of numbers?”

Halla put the brush back in the bottle and screwed it shut. “That’s not the same thing!”

“Why not?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Because that’s like space and stuff. I’ve worked years to be able to do that, and then like, I got lucky and have a freaky brain.”

He leaned back against the bathroom wall, trying to appear relaxed but the angular set of his jaw belied his stance. “Yeah, and I’ve worked years to be able to do what I do, and I have a natural gift as well. I work just as hard at my job as you do at yours.”

“So you just make it up.”

He slammed his fist against the wall and Halla jumped. “I don’t just anything. There was months of work that went into that performance. I passed out after filming that rape scene it was so hard to do.”

“But how do you do it? You dropped out of drama school. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

“Is that what this is about? I don’t have a fancy degree to justify my ability to play racist so obviously I am a racist? Does it embarrass you that I don’t have a degree? Because I’m pretty sure you’re going to have enough for any three normal people.”

Halla stood up, her feet smacking against the toilet lid. She found it odd to be so tall. “So what? I’m not normal now? Am I supposed to apologize for being smart?”

Michael’s eyes were glacial. “Only if you want me to apologize for being talented.”

“I would stomp away and slam the door behind me now but my toenails are still wet, so you have to leave.” She pointed at the door.

Michael was all too happy to comply, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him.

“You still have to say something nice about Nelson Mandela!” she yelled after him.

Michael flung the door back open. “No. I am not a racist. I can act. You can’t, so you have no idea how hard it is.”

“You play pretend for a living.”

“No, it’s more than that. I can make you believe something that isn’t true. Just because you are the world’s worst liar doesn’t mean that being able to convince people of the truth of what is at its core pretending isn’t an important or difficult skill.”

Halla huffed. “I can tell a lie.”

“No, you can’t baby. You’re horrible at it.”

“How do you know?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Because I know you. You can’t hide it when you have a secret and you can’t lie worth a damn. I’ll prove it to you. Tell me two truths and a lie and I’ll tell you which one the lie is.”

“Alright.” She stopped and thought. “When I was growing up, we had a dog named Karl. I punched a boy and broke his nose when I was thirteen. I once forgot to return a library book for a year and when I found it I was so embarrassed that I threw it away and told the library that I had returned it and they must have lost it.”

“The second one’s a lie.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Lucky guess.”

“No, I can tell when you’re lying. I know what lying looks like.”

“Do it again. I was twelve when –,”

“Lie.”

She stomped her foot and the toilet lid rattled. “I hadn’t even got to the lie part yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know what it looks like. I can tell you were going to lie to me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then you do it. You do two truths and a lie.”

“I got kicked out of church one Sunday for flirting with a nun. I named my first motorcycle George.” He paused and rubbed his throat. “And I used to steal a beer out of the fridge when I was little and drink it in my room while listening to music every Sunday evening.”

“The last one’s a lie.”

He chuckled. “No, but I made you think it was.”

“But you looked more nervous and didn’t meet my eyes when you were saying that one.”

“Exactly. I was acting like what you think a liar would do, and I deliberately didn’t when I was actually lying.”

Her eyes narrowed as the smile on his face grated against her raw nerves. “So which one was a lie?”

“The one with the nun.”

“I’m gonna try again.”

He bowed mockingly, all pleasantries and smiles. “Go ahead, baby.”

“My best friend if sixth form was a girl named Clarissa. I camped out overnight at the theatre to see the Star Wars movies when they rereleased them.”

“Those are both true, the next one’s the lie.”

She stamped her foot again. “It’s really irritating when you don’t let me finish.”

He shrugged as if her irritation was inconsequential. “It’s really irritating when you think I’m a racist.”

“I don’t think you’re a racist,” she yelled and threw a roll of loo paper at him. He let it bounce off his chest and fall to the floor. “I’m trying to separate you from Epps in my head. I told you I’d be asking you weird questions. But that’s not even the problem now.”

“God, now what’s the problem?”

She ran her fingers through her hair and then grabbed one of her hair ties from the counter and pulled her hair back. Her shoulders sank and she didn’t look at him. “How am I supposed to believe anything you say to me if you can just lie like that?”

Michael chucked her under the chin so she would look at him. It was easier because she was still standing on the toilet. “Because you’re supposed to trust me.”

“Right.”

He rubbed his chin. “But you don’t.”

“I do. Don’t shake your head at me.” She grabbed his face and held it still. “I trust you. I don’t trust your characters but I trust you. And right now, you’re you. Tell me something true.”

“Nelson Mandela was a great man who spent his life fighting for the rights of his people.”

She giggled. “See, was that so hard?”

“I shouldn’t have had to say it in the first place.”

“I didn’t ask you to do it because I actually think you’re racist. I did it to help reassert who you are. My Michael. Not some character from a movie, but my Michael.”

Michael picked her up and carried her out of the bathroom, not caring if the polish on her toenails was dry or not. He sat down with her in his lap, her legs wrapped around his waist. “I am your Michael. Right here, right now. Yours baby. Just yours.”

“I love you, Michael.”

“I know. I go a bit crazy when it seems like you don’t respect what I do. I know it doesn’t take all the books and computers that you use, but what I do is difficult and I’m damn good at it.”

“I know you are. I just,” she sighed, “I’ve never seen you actually working. Like, I see the fun interviews and the behind the scenes pranks, and I’ve seen you and James doing voice work and goofing off in the sound studio, and I saw you give a concert wearing a giant puppet head. I don’t see the rest of it. The hard stuff.”

“You wanna come see me on set sometime?”

She nodded hurriedly. “I would love to. I think it would help me understand what you do more.”

“Okay, so, I’ll try and work it so you can come visit me on set for a few days on my next project and you, you know, ask me questions so you can reattach me or detach me or whatever it is you’re doing with me and I promise not to get mad or think you’re attacking me, and hopefully we’ll get to the point where you can feel comfortable sleeping in our bed tonight. With me there at the same time.’

Halla gently kissed him. “Would you mind putting on some pants first? I don’t want to get distracted by your penis.”

Michael grinned and shook his head. “Liar.”


	18. Memory and Film - Part Four

Saturday, 12:30pm

Michael sat at one end of the table, picking at his sandwich, while Halla sat at the other end, eating leftover Chinese food. Things were slightly better between the two of them, but several of the things she had said still rankled, not to mention that they were going through this at all. He finally put down his sandwich. He had no appetite, and the bites he had taken sat like rocks in his stomach. “This might sound insensitive, but why did you watch 12 Years a Slave if you knew you were going to react like this? I mean, you knew I had a rape scene in it.”

Halla carefully put down her chopsticks. “Well, I didn’t know I was going to react this badly. I thought it would be okay because it was you. But I was wrong. That just made it worse.”

“If you think you’re going to react badly to something, don’t watch it all.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “But it’s your work. I need to watch it.”

“No you don’t.”

“You read all of my articles. There’s like six people in the world that actually read the articles and don’t just skim through them, and three of those people are the reviewers for the journal, so they’re required to.”

Michael laughed, even with the tension filling the room making both of them somber. “Your articles don’t cause actual trauma though. They just give me a headache.”

“You don’t have to read them.”

“You don’t have to watch my films.”

Halla snorted and went back to eating. “I wish you’d told me that before I watched Jonah Hex.”

Michael stopped with his glass half way to his mouth. “You watched Jonah Hex? I haven’t even watched that.”

“You were good. The rest,” she waggled her chopsticks, “not so much.”

“I hereby give you my royal permission to not watch things I’m in if you think they might upset you.”

Halla laughed and tried to curtsy in her seat. “And I give you permission to skim if you get bored. Or if your head starts hurting.”

Michael sat back in his chair and scratched his chin. “Okay, so if we’re making some ground rules for what’s okay and not okay, the whole throwing things at me when you’re mad? Not a huge fan of that.”

The tips of Halla’s ears turned red. “Sorry,” she murmured.

“And kicking me out of the room is really you just running away.”

“But –,”

He leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs. “No. We’ve been doing well, but you still suck at using your words when you get upset. So, I’m just saying in the future, when we fight, the ground rules of you not running away apply.”

Halla huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “But I was mad at you.”

“I was mad at you too. You accused me of being a racist, and that has nothing to do with rape.”

Halla’s arms tightened so she was hugging herself, rubbing her hand against her arm. “I thought the Nelson Mandela thing would be funny,” she muttered.

Michael’s chair came clattering down on all four legs. His fingers gripped the tables with enough force to make his nail beds go white. “You what?”

“You know. Like, sassy or something.”

He swallowed twice to keep from yelling. “Well it wasn’t.”

She scowled at him, her face still lowered. “I figured that out when you got mad.”

He took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his hair and then took another deep breath. “Then why did you keep pushing it?”

“Because I don’t want you thinking if you get mad at me I’ll just give in on stuff.”

“Why would you think I would do that?” he yelled.

She flung her arms in the air. “Because I suck at emotional things. Why is that such a surprise to you? That’s what I saw growing up. My dad would yell, my mum would give in, Dad would go to the pub and drink and gamble, and Mum would accidentally run over his golf clubs with the car. And I don’t own a car. And I like your motorcycle and don’t want to push it out in traffic.”

“Well thank you for that.” He rubbed his eyes with both hands. “God, Halla, your past is so fucked up. It’s amazing you’re as functional as you are.”

Halla’s eyes narrowed as she thought through what he had said multiple times. “I think I’m supposed to say thank you to that?”

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that but that’s alright because I don’t know what to say to you. I mean, I love you, but I feel like every layer of your brokenness I peel back just reveals another layer of cracks.”

She didn’t look up, but worried the hem of her shirt. Michael’s shirt. “So…so, like I’m broken all the way through.”

“I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t know if you know. Like somewhere beneath the pink and the glitter and the stars and Star Trek, there’s this 19 year old girl, and then shit happened to her, and you went through years of hell, and you don’t know how to be anything other than that 19 year old girl.”

“And you don’t want to date a 19 year old girl.”

“No, I don’t. I love how spontaneous you are, and that even though you’re a genius at physics, you think if you just get the jump on me, you’re going to be able to tackle me to the ground, and that you love to have fun. But I sometimes feel like I’ve got a teenage daughter rather than a girlfriend.”

“Well,” her eyelashes fluttered and her chin started to quiver, “that’s not good.”

“No, it’s – he was cut off by his phone ringing. He picked up the device from its place on the table next to his box of cigarettes. “It’s my dad.”

“Go ahead and answer it.” She got up and took her plate into the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Hello, Dad. How are you doing?”

She scraped the rest of the food into the bin.

“I should fire my publicist and just hire you. You always know things first. What did your google alert tell you?”

She loaded her dishes into the dishwasher.

“You’re tracking Halla now too?”

She froze where she was standing.

“Well, we’re going to show up in the same stories Dad. There have been enough pictures of us together that people know who she is now.”

“What do you mean ‘she seemed like such a nice girl’?”

Halla went running for her laptop.

“Fine, let me get my iPad.”

Halla threw herself into her chair and clicked on her Google alert. She had one set up to keep an eye out for mentions of her name just to see if anyone was talking about the anomaly, but somehow she didn’t think that would generate a phone call. She covered her mouth with a shaking hand as she read the headline from a celebrity news website. “What Fassy’s Finding Fascinating These Days.”

She closed her eyes as she clicked on the link. When she opened them again, she wished she hadn’t. “Any girl who’s seen Michael Fassbender’s package, famously paraded inShame, has wondered ‘How does that fit?’ Well, it seems Fassy’s solved that problem.  New girlfriend Halla Jónsdóttir shouldn’t have any problem taking one penis, no matter the size, after what she’s done in the past. New photos, exclusively acquired by our website, show she’s got a history that would make a porn star blush.”

Halla started scrolling. Picture after picture went by. She lost count of how many. The faces of the men and women in the pictures were pixelated except for hers, as it to protect their identities from being associated with her. Halla wished she wasn’t associated with her either, that this wasn’t her past. Her face, covered in come. Her on a dirty bed in a dingy flat, surrounded by men jacking off with their trousers around their ankles. Her on the same bed being taken simultaneously by multiple men. The next picture featured women with improvised dildos. She recognized the bed. It was the one in Gary’s apartment where she had crashed that last year when things had hit bottom. She didn’t remember most of what was in the pictures though. Her on her knees, a cock in her mouth. Her on her hands and knees, the cock in her mouth being joined by one in her arse. Another picture of her face covered with come, gagged with her own knickers. Being sodomized by a beer bottle. On and on as she fought back the urge to throw up everything she had just eaten. Torn clothes, smeared makeup, mascara running down her tear streaked face. One man jacking off on her body while the man next to him urinated on her.  Some of the photos were almost artistic in capturing her denigration.

And then she remembered Michael was downstairs looking at the same thing. She slammed her laptop shut and ran, taking the stairs as fast as she could. Michael was standing in the middle of the living room, his iPad in his hands, his phone by his bare feet. She slapped the tablet from his hands. “Don’t look at that.”

He didn’t look at her either. “Are those really pictures of you? That’s not Photoshop?” His voice was dead.

“That’s me.” She knew it was too late.

“God.”

“God had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s what you were remembering when you looked at me?” He still wouldn’t look at her.

“I don’t remember most of that happening. I’ve seen some of those photos before though. But yes, that’s what I was remembering when I looked at you.”

That got him to meet her eyes. “I never treated you like that.”

“I know. Like I said, short circuit in the brain. It’s going away, the more time I spend with you.” She hugged herself, suddenly cold, worrying the sleeve of Michael’s shirt between her thumb and forefinger. “But now, you can’t look at me, can you?”

“I don’t even watch porn like some of what you were doing.”

She shook her head. “It was being done to me. I was so drunk I don’t remember most of it. Those are pictures of me being raped. Fucking Halla was a party game.  An adult version of pin the tail on the donkey.”

He was silent for a while and Halla waited to see where the next shoe would drop. “My dad saw those.”

She nodded. There it was. It was over. “Yep. A lot of people have now. There’s no way to stop it, not with it on the internet. By Monday someone will have emailed it to everyone at the observatory. I should just go ahead and email it to my therapist.”

He scratched the back of his head. “I had no idea.”

“I know. I tried to tell you but you didn’t want to hear it. But I was right. You don’t want to have to deal with the scars from that. No one does.”

“Halla…”

She made herself smile at him. “It’s okay. You were going to break up with me anyway before your dad called. I’m a 19 year old girl’s brain in a 12 year old boy’s body and you’re tired of it. And you’re so tired of the dick jokes. They took one of the most amazing performances in the history of cinema and shrunk it to a nine inch punch line, and the last thing you need now that the press is finally getting past that is for your girlfriend to be a punch line too. So I’m just gonna go grab my computer and finish getting dressed and then I’ll be gone. And then if you can just pack up the rest of my stuff when you have time and take it to my parents? I’m pretty sure I’ll be moving back there soon.”

Halla headed for the stairs but paused before she took the first step, hoping she was wrong and he would call her back, but he didn’t. It didn’t take her long to change and pack the few things she’d brought with her that she would need and to place the shirt she had been wearing in the laundry. She unplugged her laptop and stowed it in its bag along with the current drafts of her dissertation chapters she was editing. Halla scanned the office making sure there wasn’t anything essential left behind and closed the door behind her. Steeling herself against the coming farewell, she took a deep breath and headed downstairs.

“I’m going to go now.”

Michael walked over to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Basic law of physics. Systems decay over time. It happens.”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I do love you, Halla.”

She shook her head. “I know. Love doesn’t fix everything though. I know I’m still broken,” the tears welled in her eyes, “but you’ve fixed a lot of the broken layers. So thank you.”

“I’ll still pay for your therapy. As long as you need it.”

“Thank you.” The tears started to fall. “And uh, if a meteor falls in your garden or something, I’ll come poke it with a stick for you.”

“Shiny.”

She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the shattered sob. “I’m gonna go catch a train now.”

He took half a step towards her. “You want a ride to the station?”

“No. It’s nice weather out. A bit of a walk sounds like just what I need.”

“Bye, Glitterbutt.”

“Bye, Caveman.” He hugged her and she took one last inhale of his familiar aroma to last her for the next fifty years.

Halla got to the station just in time to catch a northbound train, and as she sat she went through her backpack looking for a familiar packet of heavily folded paperwork. She pulled it out and found the page entitled “Crisis Plan for When Michael’s Unavailable.” She smoothed the creases with her palm and started calling the phone numbers.


	19. Memory and Film - Part Five

Saturday 2:00pm

Halla had left a message with Elsie and another one with her sponsor and was about to call Chelsea when her phone rang. A picture of Michael flashed on the screen. She was tempted to just let it go to voicemail, but somehow she couldn’t.

Her voice shook. “Hi.”

“Come home.”

She covered her face with her hand. “Michael…”

“Come home. Come back to me.”

“You don’t want me, remember?”

“You’re wrong. I do.”

She rubbed away the tears that were threatening to fall. “You let me go.”

“I was in shock.”

“I’m a 19 year old girl.”

“You’re a thirty year old women with some scar tissue.”

The sound she made was an awkward combination of a laugh and a sob. “I’m broken all the way through.”

His voice was clogged and rough when he answered. “No. You’re stronger than I ever imagined.”

“You can’t stand to look at me.”

“I can’t bear the thought of never seeing you again.”

The tears started falling, overwhelming her attempts to hold them back. “I make you tired.”

“You confuse me. You suck at using your words when you’re mad or hurt or scared. But you’ve gotten better. I’m willing to gamble that you’ll keep getting better. And hey, first real fight as a couple. Almost an exact year since the last one. Maybe we’re just allergic to the end of January.”

Halla scrubbed at her face with her hand and turned to face the window, aware she was gathering odd glances from the other passengers. “You said you feel like you have a teenage daughter.”

“Yeah. So I’m not that good at using my words when I fight either. We could probably both learn some coping skills. In fact, I’m thinking we should probably go to couples therapy. I need more help than I can get out of a book.”

“Couples therapy isn’t going to fix anything. The pictures are out there. I’m just going to make your life harder.”

“You make my life so much better, Halla. I love you. You love me. The images fade, just like you know I’m not Epps. I know those pictures aren’t you. They’re remnants of what happened to you. I’m gonna sue the website. I know it won’t fix everything, but we’ll make a statement. I want you here to help decide what to say and how much of what happened to you gets discussed. You’re in control of this. We’ll make it very clear that these are photos of a crime happening, and not activities in which you were a willing participant.”

“Michael,” she couldn’t even get her voice above a whisper, as if she couldn’t even give voice to what she had seen, “I don’t even remember doing most of that stuff. Like I close my eyes and all I see is that beer bottle. I just want to forget again but the only way I know how to do that is by drinking and I don’t want to start that.”

“Baby, you get off that train at the next stop. You can’t have gone too far yet. I’m coming to get you and we’re going to get through this together, alright?”

Halla didn’t say anything and the announcement that they were coming into the station played, loud enough that Michael heard it.

“Halla, get off the train. Please, baby.”

Her hands trembled as she sat, hugging herself.  All her well-worn neural pathways were just waiting for her to keep running, slick with an intoxicating chemical brew of adrenaline, but there was a new path, barely a trail, thin and fragile in its infancy that also beckoned with a simple offer of stay. It was treacherous and rocky, but its destination beckoned with the hope of finding peace. “Please mind the gap between the train and the platform,” sounded overhead as Halla quickly gathered up her things. She carefully made her way onto the platform and moved away from the crowds. “I’m off the train.”

“I’ll be right there. Just wait right there and don’t do anything.” The sound of a car door slamming and an engine turning over came through the phone.

Halla found a corner and huddled in it, her back against the wall. “Will you stay on the line with me?”

“Sure. Do you want to talk about anything?”

“No. I just don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m going to turn on the car radio and then sing along, alright? That way you don’t have to talk but you know I’m here.”

It took half a dozen songs before he finally said he was pulling in front of the station and Halla darted up the stairs and ran to his car. He swung the door open and she piled into the car and climbed right into his lap. Grateful that he had found a parking spot, he turned the car off and reached over to pull her door shut before he slid his seat back. He’d held her like this before, in that car park in Cambridge. The crying there had been angry and noisy. Her crying now was quiet, but it shook her entire body.

She finally calmed enough to look at him. Her face was red and blotchy. “Thank you for coming after me.”

He kissed her tentatively, half convinced she wouldn’t let him at all after what he’d said and what she’d seen. “I won’t let you walk out the door again, Halla. I swear. I will always come for you.”


	20. Memory and Film - Part Six

Saturday, 4:30pm

Michael opened the door to the bedroom to check on Halla. Downstairs his lawyer was on the phone with the people who ran the website, making threating sounds about things like material witness, accessory after the fact, contempt of court, and violation of privacy. Halla had decided that her first priority was getting the pictures down, and only if that couldn’t happen would she pursue charges for rape. She had retreated to the bedroom so she didn’t have to hear the discussions that were going on between Michael’s publicist, agent, and lawyer. She just wanted to be left alone.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, next to the lump that he was fairly sure was his girlfriend curled up under the blanket. “Halla?” he asked softly.

The lump stirred and one hand snuck its way out from under the blanket to grip his fingers.

“I called your therapist. She’s in London for the afternoon and I asked her to stop by before she goes back to Cambridge tonight. I hope that’s alright.”

There was movement under the blanket but he couldn’t tell if she had nodded or shook her head. “Baby? Can you please use a word or two? Or come out of your cocoon for a minute?”

She dragged the blanket down enough so her face was visible, the fine strands of her hair standing out in a staticky cloud around her. Her face was flushed but Michael couldn’t tell if it was just from the warm cave she had built for herself or if she had been crying.

“Is it alright if your therapist comes over?”

She nodded.

“Can I get you anything?”

“A beer.”

He smiled and brushed his thumb against her cheek, smoothing away the hairs that were trying to work into the corner of her mouth. “How about something besides that?”

“I want to forget.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pain lines creasing her forehead. “I want to forget everything I saw. It was bad enough before, just dealing with the things I could remember. I was barely holding it together. And now, it’s worse. And as bad as those photos are, I can’t help but wonder if there’s worse out there. Like, what happened to me that I still don’t know about?”

“Are you going to be alright if I hold you right now?”

She nodded, one tooth catching on her bottom lip as she looked up at him.

“My lap or spoon?”

“Lap.”

Michael scooped her up and sat against the headboard. Halla curled up in his arms, her knees hugged to her chest and Michael rested his chin on top of her head. “I don’t know how to help, baby. I have no idea how to heal from something like what you’ve gone through. But someone does. And we’ll find them and I’ll do whatever they tell me to do, and I’ll help you as much as I can. That’s all I can say.”

Halla wrapped her hand around Michael’s forearm and they sat quietly together, Michael not knowing what to say and Halla fighting back the words she felt. They finally escaped her restraints. “You’re going to regret having me come back.”

“No. No, I won’t.” He reached over and pulled a small box off of the top of his nightstand. “I was going to give this to you yesterday, but uh, stuff happened.”

“And by stuff, you mean shit.” She took the flat leather box from him. “You don’t need to buy me jewelry, Michael.”

“Just open it.”

Halla let go of his arm so she could open the box, the hinges stiff. She gasped and looked up at him. “You fixed my necklace!” She touched the simple star pendant on its slim gold chain as if it might disappear. “How did you do that?”

“Well, not so much fixed. I had a new one made. Luckily all my photos of you have the necklace, so it was easy for the jeweler to get an idea of what to make.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, staring at it, a slight tremble in her hands. “It’s perfect. I never would have known it’s different.”

“Uh, I did have one change made.” He flipped the pendant over to show a small diamond set in the reverse. “I thought you could use a little sparkle.”

Halla wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “I don’t feel like I have much sparkle left, Michael.”

He took the necklace from the box and fastened it carefully around her neck. “You wear that diamond against your skin. Just a little reminder that I believe in you, and I believe in your sparkle. You’ll get both back.”

Her lips turned white as she struggled not to break down. “You really think so?”

“I do. Me and you together. We’ve got this. I can’t say it’s going to be easy or quick, but we’ll get this fixed.”

She shook her head. “I’m always going to have scars from this.”

He picked up her hand and placed her finger against the scar on his upper lip. “Feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how I got it?”

She shook her head. “Motorcycle accident?” she ventured.

“I got in a fight. A bar fight. So damn drunk I didn’t realize I’d been badly cut until the next day. That’s why it scarred so bad.”

Her eyebrow arched in skepticism. “You’re saying you’ve got scars too?”

“I’m saying I haven’t been kicked out of a bar since we started dating. I haven’t been asked to leave an after-party because I got too rowdy. I’m saying that you saved me from pissing away my talent on booze and fast cars. I want you to be proud of me, Halla.” He cupped her face in his hands, practically enveloping her head in his long fingers. “Proud of what I do but also proud of me. I don’t want to be a dick that people put up with because I can act. I want you to be proud of me because I am so fucking proud of you.”

Halla placed her hands over his, her fingers interweaving with his. Her blue eyes shimmered with trembling tears. “How can you possibly be proud of me? You saw those pictures. I'm human trash.”

“No. No you’re not, baby. You are so fucking strong. You decided, under horrible circumstances I know, but you decided to change. You’ve drank one day in the last two years compared to being so drunk every day you couldn’t remember your life. You got your fellowship back. You’re almost done with your dissertation. You’ve got something in space named after you. You have overcome so much shit because you are so fucking strong. You’re tiny, but you’re strong. And you’re going to get through this, just like you’ve been getting through everything else.”

She dropped a hand to her throat and her fingers closed around her necklace. “I want to believe you. I really do.”

“You keep on wanting to believe. I believe enough for both of us until you can believe it yourself.” His thumbs wiped away the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. “You’re going to get through this. And it’s not just me who believes in you and is here to help. Chelsea and Elsie James and Anne-Marie and Dr. Stein and other people love you and are here to help, okay? You’ve got help. You’re not facing this alone this time.”

 Her chin quivered. “I feel alone.”

“Alone lies. I am right here. I will always be here.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her firmly against his chest. “I am always right here.” She didn’t say anything in response and eventually her body acquired the limpness that meant she was sound asleep. He carefully scooted down on the bed so he was lying down with her sleeping against him. Downstairs people were working away to protect Halla from the evils of the world, but right now, the best protection he could provide was to let her know she wasn’t alone. So he stayed and dozed next to her, soothing away the nightmares before they woke her, and protected her from the evils of her own memories.


	21. Memory and Film - Part Seven

Saturday, 7:00pm

Michael had to get Halla out of the bedroom when Dr. Thompson arrived. Everyone else had left an hour ago but she hadn’t emerged from her blanket cocoon. He’d brought her food and a big glass of ice water. She’d only picked at the food which had him worried. At least she drank the water before she pulled the blanket back up over her and went back to ignoring the entire world.

“Thank you for calling me. I don’t normally make house calls, but in this case I’m making an exception,” she said to Michael as Halla came into the room.

“That bad, doc?” Halla said as she flopped down on the sofa.

“How are you feeling right now, Halla?”

“Like getting drunk so I can’t remember what’s in those photos.”

“Are you comfortable with Michael being here while we talk, or would you like privacy?”

Halla waved her hand limply at Michael who was sitting at the other end of the sofa. “He can stay. It’s not like he doesn’t know about all of this anyway.”

“Does he?”

“Know everything? He saw those pictures. What’s left to know?”

Dr. Thompson jotted down a note. “Halla, what did you think when you saw those pictures?”

Halla didn’t respond at first. Instead she sat up and crossed her legs in front of her and then found her hair fascinating. She twisted a strand around and around her finger, watching the tip turn red. “Shock, first,” she eventually answered and shrugged as if it wasn’t important. “Disbelief that it was me, and then I recognized some of the people, and I recognized the bed and I realized it really was me, even though I don’t remember most of it. And then I realized that I’m trash.”

“You are not trash,” Michael interrupted, but Dr. Thompson held up a hand.

“You don’t get to tell her how to feel, Mr. Fassbender.”

“But she’s wrong.”

The psychiatrist shook her head. “It’s how she felt.”

“But,” he started to answer but Dr. Thompson again raised her hand. “Those are the rules here. If you can’t abide by them, you can go in another room.”

Michael slouched back against the sofa. “Fine.”

“Tell me,” she continued to talk to Michael, “how did you feel when you saw the photos of Halla?”

He sat up straighter and tugged at the neck of his shirt. “Confused at first. I wasn’t sure, you know, what I was looking at. I mean, I knew what I was looking at, but it took me a minute to realize it was Halla. It didn’t look like her. I mean, it did, but it wasn’t her. Not the Halla I knew. And then I felt revolted. A little jealous, and then disgusted with myself for being jealous. And then I felt embarrassed. That she had done those things and they were going to be linked to me. That my dad had seen them. That everyone was going to see them, and every time they saw Halla they were going to be thinking about those pictures.”

“And so you let her go.”

“It was a mistake,” his hand sliced through the air. “It just took me a bit to process what I had seen, and then Halla telling me that it was rape, and it, you know, it took a bit to all process through. I shouldn’t have let her go,” she slumped back and shook his head, “but we were already fighting.”

“About her response to your acting.”

“Yeah. And then I freaked out about the pictures.” He ran his hand over his hair and sighed. “It’s been a bad few days.”

“So what do you see now when you look at Halla?”

Michael looked at her at the other end of the sofa. “The woman I love. She’s had a shit past, but she’ll get through it.”

“Halla, do you know what I saw when I looked at the pictures?”

She didn’t look up from the frayed hem of her jeans. “Do I want to?”

“I saw a woman who was dying.”

Halla snorted and continued tugging at one long thread. “That’s a bit overly dramatic, don’t you think?”

“No.” Dr. Thompson passed her iPad to Halla. “Look at that picture.”

Halla glanced at her image on the screen and then closed her eyes.

“No, really look at it. I know it’s unpleasant, but I want you to look at yourself.”

Halla opened her eyes and looked at the picture. Her eyes flickered away and then back repeatedly, like a bird too scared to settle.

“Look at how emaciated you were.”

Michael scooted over to look and noticed the exaggerated collar bones, the circles under the eyes, the protruding ribs.

“How much did you weigh when your family got you into hospital the night you crashed your car?”

“About a stone and a half less than I do now,” she whispered.

“And look at your skin. What color is it in that picture?”

She didn’t bother looking at the photo. “Yellow.” She pulled at the frayed threads some more.

“And the whites of your eyes?”

“Yellow.”

“Do you know what that means?”

Halla didn’t answer.

“What does it mean, Halla?”

The thread snapped. “My liver wasn’t working that great, alright? The amount of alcohol I was downing a day, no wonder.”

“Why did you go to hospital rather than jail that night?”

“Because I got hurt in the crash.”

“A few bumps and cuts. Why were you in the hospital for two weeks, Halla?”

“You were in hospital for two weeks?” Michael asked.

Halla stood up and stalked over to the wall where her calculations were still posted.

“Baby, why were you in hospital for two weeks?”

She didn’t answer and Michael got up off the sofa and walked over to her. “Baby?” He placed his hand on her shoulder and she lurched away from him.

“Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

Michael stepped back. “Halla, it’s okay.”

“No. No it’s not. You want to know why I was in the hospital for two weeks?” she yelled and Michael backed up another step as she advanced on him. “Because I was such a disease-ridden piece of filth it took them that long to clean me up. I had lice. I had crabs. I had chlamydia, and syphilis, and Hep C. I had gonorrhea. I had trichomoniasis. I have no idea with all of that how I didn’t end up with AIDS or herpes too, but lucky for me,” she waved her hands in a sarcastic celebration, “I didn’t. I had liver disease. I had mono. I had pneumonia. I had a bladder infection. I had ringworm. It took months to get everything cleared up and cleaned up and I still go in for checkups every three months to make sure my liver wasn’t permanently damaged.”

Michael just stared at her, too stunned to figure out how to respond.

“How many times did you try and run away from the hospital, Halla?”

Halla whirled on her therapist. “Why are you asking me this? You obviously know my story. You have my file from the hospital and from rehab.”

“Because you refuse to talk about it. You refuse to admit how bad it was for you and you need to get down to that place so we can fix the cracks at the foundation before we can really build anything stable on top of it.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”

Dr. Thompson smiled. “Every therapist you worked with in rehab and the one you worked with while in Hungary all have the same note about you in their file.”

“Brilliant conversationalist?” Halla suggested.

“Denial.”

Halla screamed and yanked her fingers through her hair. “Of course I’m in denial. Why would I want to admit to my past? You’ve seen pictures. I lived it. Ilived every single fucking minute of that, even if I can’t remember all of them. I tried to run away from the hospital seven times. Even as messed up as I was, I wanted to go back. I ripped out my IV so many times they handcuffed me to my bed. I wanted to forget all of it, especially when I realized what I’d done to Patrek. I managed to get into a supply closet and tried to overdose on painkillers, but they found me too soon and stuffed me full of activated charcoal. Is that what you wanted to admit?”

Dr. Thompson didn’t react. “And then you spent a really long time in rehab. Much longer than normal. Why is that?”

“Because the first time I got a weekend leave I got drunk. And the second. And then the third time I went to Gary’s flat because I wanted someone to blame for the shithole my life had become and asked him about the pictures on my phone and he laughed.” Her eyes were wide, watching a horror film no one else could see. “Gary laughed. I had thought he was my boyfriend but it turned out he was my pimp. He’d keep me drunk enough so I could remember him being nice to me and buying me clothes and then he’d roofie my drink so he could whore me out that night without me remembering. He was buying me clothes with my own earnings. I kept a roof over his head for a year. He asked me if I was ready to come back and work some more.”

“And what did you do, Halla?”

“I hit him in the head with a chair.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And then I pissed on him. And then I left. After I stole all the money from his wallet.”

“Just like you hit Kyle in the head with a coffee pot.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t pee on him.”

Dr. Thompson jotted down another note. “You have a lot of anger inside you.”

Halla’s hands balled into fists at her side. “He said he jacked off to thoughts of coming on my face. Actually, the word he used was ‘jizzing.’ I think I’m allowed to be angry.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.  When he said that to you, how did you feel?”

She visibly shrunk as she remembered and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Trapped. I remembered what that felt like. And I remember how trapped I was in that life. I couldn’t get myself out by myself. It took my parents and doctors and therapists and tragedy and even still, sometimes I want a beer to just take the edge off, to just relax over dinner with some friends but I can’t, and every time I order water or a cherry Coke when I go out to eat, I remember what a fucking failure I was. And there’s no way of getting around that. I’ll never be able to drink again. I’ll never trust myself to just have one and quit.”

“You resent the restrictions sobriety puts on you.”

“Yes. I want to be able to have a beer once in a while.” Her pitch rose as she continued, though she remained quiet. “I want to have kinky sex with my boyfriend without freaking out. I want to know that I’ll actually be able to get pregnant and have a baby. But I can’t and I don’t.”

Michael reached out to touch her but hesitated. “We don’t have to have kinky sex, baby. Our sex life is fantastic.”

She stamped her foot as she turned to him. “But I wantto be able to even if we don’t.” Her frown was carved deep in her face. “I don’t want to have another fucking panic attack because I talk dirty to you. I want to be normal, damnit. I don’t want all these scars.”

He hesitantly touched her arm waiting for her to jerk away but she didn’t. “You think you won’t be able to have a baby?”

“I don’t know. The doctors don’t know.” She threw her hands in the air. “Nobody knows. Why do you think I ran away from Henry so damn fast?”

Michael dropped his hand. “I thought it was because he didn’t support your career goals.”

“Well yeah, but once I found out he wanted five kids, I was out of there. Up until that point I had held out hope, but I couldn’t even imagine trying to have the conversation with him about ‘oh sorry honey, the permanent damage I did to my hoo-ha when I was a whore for a year is putting your dream of the perfect mommy and wife and five kids and a perfect home in jeopardy.  Sorry about that.’”

Michael rubbed his cheeks to hide the small smile her words caused. “And you think you could have that conversation with me?”

“Yeah. I do. For some crazy reason I saw myself getting to the point where I could actually tell you, without all the pretty pictures as visual aids preferably, how incredibly bad my life got. And why I run. I’m not bringing anyone else down with me next time. Because I know I’m just one drink away from that again. One drink away from being a filthy whore for as long as it takes me to actually manage to kill myself. ”

“Nope.” He grabbed her shoulders and bent so they were eye level. “I know you have a lot of fears and worries, but that one you can get rid of. Because if you run, I will chase you down. If you drink, I will find you and get you sober again. If you relapse, I will lock you in a rehab facility until you are clean. Last time you didn’t have me. This time you do. Those pictures, what those people did to you, that will never happen to you again. I promise.”

Halla closed her eyes, her shoulders sagging even in Michael’s grasp. “You can’t keep me from fucking up.”

“I know. Everyone fucks up. But if you do fall, know that I’m going to catch you before you hit rock bottom.  I can’t promise no problems, but I can promise you that it won’t ever be like that again.”

Her voice shook as she spoke.“But what if I can’t have kids?”

Michael shrugged. “We’ll adopt. Or get a surrogate. Or do something else depending on which of your parts work and which don’t.”

“That easy?”

He pulled her closer, letting his hands stroke down her back. “You are so much more than a uterus, Halla. If you want to be a mother, then you’ll be a mother. I don’t think that requires you squeezing the child out your actual,” he chuckled, “what did you call it, a hoo-ha?”

Color rose in her cheeks. “Yeah.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” he grinned, “I love your hoo-ha, but I love the whole package even more.”

Halla wiped her hand across her face. “Stop being all nice and sweet and stuff. You’re gonna make me cry.”

“Okay, Glitterbutt. Talk to your therapist. I’ll shut up now.”

Michael sat down on the sofa and Halla curled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. He normally would have wrapped his arm around her or pulled her into his lap, but he could feel the tension in her and thought she needed a bit more space than normal. Instead he brushed his hand over hers and relaxed as she held onto it.

“Well. That’s more progress than we’ve made in the last three months,” Dr. Thompson said.

Halla smirked. “It’s amazing what trauma does for the therapeutic process.”

Dr. Thompson smiled. “It’s amazing what being honest about what happened to you does for the healing process.”

Halla sighed. “I don’t see why me talking about all that stuff helps.”

“Because I need to see the poison to know where to treat. As a psychiatrist, what happened to you is only part of the issue. The other half is how you perceive what happened to you.”

“And so what did you learn about me today, doc?”

“That you don’t run away from people. You’re still running away from your past. You’ve never come to terms with what happened. You blame yourself for what happened, even while you were drugged out of your mind, and that you still expect to relapse and have Michael leave you.”

She snorted. “Is that it?”

“You see yourself as diseased.”

Halla stiffened. “I’m clean. I checked again before we stopped using condoms.”

“Not physically. Mentally. You think if you can achieve enough that you’ll manage to keep the ‘dirty whore’ part of you hidden. You’re so determined to deny what happened to you that you resent being sober because you view it as medicine for the part of you that you’re ashamed of.”

“Who would be proud of that past?”

“I’m not saying you should be proud of it. The doctors cured all the other diseases you had, but they can’t cure alcoholism. All we can do is treat it. And as long as you have to keeping taking your sober pills, you think you’re still that diseased person at heart.”

Halla hugged her knees to her chest and rested her forehead against them.  Her shoulders began to shake.

Michael rubbed a hand slowly up and down her back. “How do I help?” he asked Dr. Thompson.

“Give her space when she needs it. Respect the boundaries she sets for herself, even if they change erratically. Keep telling her you love her or however you two communicate that to each other. Tell her she isn’t garbage, she isn’t diseased, she isn’t worthless. It’s not going to be a quick process, but you seem to plan on being here for the long run.”

“I do.”

She nodded. “Good. Halla, are you planning on going back to school next week?”

She didn’t raise her head. “I had planned on it, why?”

“A piece of advice. Take a week off. I know you’re right in the middle of your dissertation, but just stay here. Write here. Take a week off from anything that isn’t absolutely necessary and then pamper yourself. Long bubble baths, chocolate, pedicure, whatever it is you do to make yourself feel better, do that. Eat all your favorite foods, watch old movies, whatever you need. And drink lots of water. Your body is producing lots of stress hormones right now, and you’re going to want to flush those from your system.”

She looked up at her doctor, her face red and blotchy. “Can I still come see you for our appointments? And the sauna?”

“Absolutely.”

After showing Dr. Thompson to the door, Michael came back to find Halla had disappeared. Then he heard the water turn on upstairs. Panic gripped his heart as he tore up the stairs and burst into the bathroom only to find Halla sitting on the edge of the tub testing the water temperature. He skidded to a halt.

Halla smiled at him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to send you into a tizzy. I just thought a bath might be nice.”

“Right. Of course.”

“No more lobster impersonations, Michael.”

“Right.” He ran his hand over his hair. “Can I get you something to eat?”

“Popcorn? And maybe a soda if you have one?”

“Right. Of course.”

He came back a few minutes later to find Halla in the tub, bubbles up to her chin. He pulled the stool over and set her cherry Coke and a bowl of popcorn on it. He held out a book to her. “I got it out of your bag.”

Halla giggled and took the pink and sparkly book from him. “Chick lit’s my weakness.”

He bent over and kissed the top of her head. “You’re mine.”


	22. 30 January 2015

_Friday_

Michael looked over at Halla who was staring out the car window into the London night. He’d taken her out to dinner to celebrate one year of her being sober and she had chattered non-stop the whole time. It was the first time since the photos had hit the internet and the ensuing aftermath that he had felt like she was close to her normal self. Even with her taking the time off from the observatory, they had barely been together. The last week had been like sharing his flat with a ghost and not just because of her coloring. She’d been quiet and withdrawn, spending long hours working away on her dissertation. At least that’s what she said she was doing, but when he’d walk by the office sometimes the door would be shut and he’d hear her crying. She barely spoke and she had problems sleeping. She’d rejoined him in their bed, but they hadn’t had sex and instead of sprawling over him, he would wake in the middle of the night to find her curled up in a ball as tight as she could manage. Once they had gotten back into the car though, she had fallen silent again, the only motion the constant flipping of her one year chip.

“What are you thinking about?”

She blinked several times, slowly, like she was coming back from somewhere far away. “Henry.”

The word was like a punch to his gut. She hadn’t mentioned him in months, and now, after everything they’d gone through together, she was thinking about him. Michael had never considered himself a jealous man, but the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he thought about Halla leaving him for that man. “Why?” he asked in a neutral tone though his fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

“It’s been a year since that afternoon in Rotterdam when I told you all I was leaving. You two had such different responses.” She rested a hand on his arm and he relaxed his grip slightly. “You encouraged me and told me I could do it, and Henry wanted to know when I was coming back. And I remember hugging him and thinking that if I hadn’t been an alcoholic, Henry and I would have been together and everything would have been perfect, and blaming us not working on my problems. And I realize now how wrong I was.”

“What do you mean?”

“Henry and I didn’t work not because I was an alcoholic. We didn’t work because we wanted different things out of life.”

Michael nodded and kicked the jealousy monster out of his thoughts again. “Right.”

“Doctor Thompson said that I think of myself as diseased and I think she’s right.” He’d driven her up to Cambridge three times this week to see her therapist, not wanting her to have to face a long train ride home by herself after a rough session. At least that was most of the reason. Partly he wanted to be close enough to catch her if she ran. “I see myself as incapable of a lot of things because I have this problem, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m giving it too much power.” She began twisting her hair around her finger as she talked, staring out the window again. “I can’t give alcohol that much control. It doesn’t run my life completely. I mean, there are things I can’t do but there’s so much more I can, and I can have bad days and things not work out for reasons for reasons completely unrelated to it as well. Alcoholism may be a disease, but it doesn’t mean it’s a moral failing.”

Michael placed his hand on her knee and breathed a mental sigh of relief that she didn’t object to the touch. “It sounds like you’re making progress.”

“I just have to figure out how to believe it. I mean, I’ve gotten drunk once in two years. I’m back at Cambridge. I should finish my PhD in a few months. I have something named after me in space. When you look at where I was three years ago, that’s pretty amazing, right?”

“Definitely.”

“And I have you.” She rested her hand on his for a moment before she slipped her fingers between his. “I wouldn’t be here without you. And James. James for calling me on my shit, and then you holding me together when the shit hit the fan. Repeatedly. This last year has been so damn hard in so many ways, but it’s also one of the best I’ve ever had.”

Michael smiled at her, and just like it felt like Halla was finally coming back after almost a week, it felt like his smile had been gone as well. “A year and two days ago I kissed you on a balcony in Rotterdam and told you I liked you. You were right about a lot of stuff that night, but I’m glad that I was right that we could figure out how to make it work.”

She tightened her fingers around his. “I’m still amazed every day when I wake up and you haven’t booted my arse to the curb in the middle of the night.”

He chuckled, a deep resonant rumble that made Halla smile. “Nah, you have a cute little arse. I’m not booting it anywhere.”

Later that night after watching  _Mean Girls_ on the sofa and Halla eating her giant anniversary fairy cake with pink (of course) frosting, Michael was propped up against the headboard flipping through his email as he waited for her to finish up in the bathroom. She’d actually cuddled with him while they watched one of her favorite films, and he’d soaked up the physical contact like the desert coming alive after a rainstorm. He was hoping this meant that she would let him hold her while they slept tonight. Lying next to her without touching her was a struggle, but she was as skittish as a mama horse with a newborn colt so he kept his hands to himself. ‘Respect her boundaries’ had been his three word mantra for the last week.

The door to the bathroom finally opened and he looked up only to feel his mouth drop open. She was standing in the doorway with her hair down and no make-up on, looking as hesitant and shy as a virgin bride. The light from behind her silhouetted her form through the almost sheer babydoll she wore in a pink nearly as pale as her skin. The ruffled bottom brushed against her thighs and she hugged herself, one hand closing over the delicate strap that crossed her shoulder.

Michael sat up straighter. “You look beautiful.”

“I,” her voice cracked and she tried again, “I bought this a while back. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.” She looked at the nightgown and pulled it out from her body before dropping it and letting it fall back into place. “It makes me feel innocent. I know that sounds dumb,” she hurried to say and Michael interrupted.

“You look innocent.” He climbed out of bed and crossed the room to her. “Very beautiful and very innocent.”

“I can’t promise anything,” her eyelids fluttered and she rested a hand against his bare chest, “anything happening tonight, but I want to try.”

“We’ll go as slow as you want. As slow as you need.” She nodded, unable to look up at him and Michael bent so their eyes met. “As slow as you need. You’re in control of this.”

She nodded again. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and she looked at his mouth and then back at his eyes. She dropped her eyes again to his mouth and blinked nervously before she slowly leaned in and let her lips brush against his. Halla pulled back and let out a shuddering breath before she leaned back in and kissed him again. Her hand on his chest slid up so it was resting on his shoulder and she kissed him once more. The feel of his lips, so familiar on hers, and the feel of his hands on her hips where they had held her so many times before, calmed her racing heart and she leaned into the next touch of their mouths.

The scent of him, warm musk and his cologne and the lingering traces of his aftershave, seeped into her awareness as he held her closer and her arms worked their way around his neck. She had no idea how long it took for them to work their way across the bedroom floor as they kissed, but the feel of his arms around her as he picked her up to place her carefully on their bed was like coming home. He told her over and over how beautiful she was, how precious she was to him, how much he loved her. They didn’t use the word love much; they both just knew. But tonight he dripped that word over her skin again and again, pressing it to her flesh with kisses, smoothing it into her with reverent touches. It took an hour of kissing her mouth and her skin, an hour of hands becoming reacquainted with warm flesh and delicate breasts, for her gown to come off, another thirty minutes before he even reached for her knickers. Before he removed each layer he asked her if she wanted to continue. Each time she said yes. And when the diaphanous scraps of fabric were discarded, he asked her again, and once more before he removed the pyjama pants he’d taken to wearing again for the last week.

He brought her to orgasm once with his fingers and again with his mouth, wishing to remind her that this could be something that brought her pleasure instead of pain. He worshipped her body as much as he could, letting her know with each look and touch and word that it humbled him that she would allow him the honor of making love to her and when he finally pressed inside her she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him like he was precious as well. She cried as he moved inside her, and when he stopped she urged him to motion again. It wasn’t pain, she said, it was thankfulness for having him, and tears escaped his eyes as well. They’d both lost track of time by now, but eventually he brought her to her pleasure once more and then took his own, and then he held her while she slept, sprawled out on top of him, in perfect peace.


	23. 31 January 2015

Michael came home from the market to find Halla sitting on the sofa with her laptop open and typing away. He smiled at her emergence from the office; another good sign in her recovery. Now, if he could just get her to start eating again. She’d lost weight over the last week, living on caramel corn and cherry Coke and little else. He didn’t want to start monitoring her food intake and requiring her to eat, but he wasn’t sure what to do if she didn’t start eating soon. At least she’d eaten normally last night when he’d taken her out to celebrate her one year mark for being sober.

He dropped a kiss on top of her head as he made his way into the kitchen to put away the food he had purchased to tempt back her appetite. He was stowing the carton of cream in the fridge, none of this non-fat mochachino stuff for her coffee for the next little bit, when he noticed the plate of extra pancakes from this morning’s breakfast was missing. He opened the dishwasher and saw the empty plate in the rack, a little bit of lingonberry jam still smeared across the surface. Maybe he hadn’t needed to make a special trip to the market after all; not if she’d gone back for a second plate of pancakes after he’d left.

He finished putting away the food and then went out to join her on the sofa. She gave him a quick kiss when he sat down and he held out an open packet of biscuits to her and she took the top one. Michael watched her eat the whole thing in two bites and then reach for another one without even looking and a few more of the knots in his shoulders relaxed. She was making progress, and that was the important part. He wasn’t dumb enough to assume that this last week had fixed everything; he knew that the emotional healing she still had in front of her would take years, and he even expected set-backs where she’d push him away again. But every little step back to her being happy was a step in the right direction, as far as he was concerned.

He was trying to convince himself to stop watching her eat when he noticed that her breasts were moving. More than just her breasts though. The front of her little camisole – she was showing skin again, another sign of returning normalcy from her spending the last week wearing long sleeves and sweatpants – periodically moved, too irregularly and too much to be her breathing. He tucked a finger in the front of her shirt and started to pull it away from her chest when a tiny little claw-bedecked paw darted out and swiped at his finger. He yanked his hand back as Halla giggled.

“You booby trapped your boobs for some reason, baby?”

A tiny black kitten head popped out of the neckline of her shirt and meowed loudly at him before ducking back down inside the flowery fabric. Halla kept typing away like this was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Halla, why do you have a cat in your shirt?”

She giggled again. “I think the more important question is why don’t  _you_ have a cat in  _your_ shirt?”

He scratched at his cheek, his nails loud against the stubble and realized he hadn’t shaved that morning. It still wasn’t habit yet, even though he was trying to keep himself clean shaven around her. “Where did you even find a cat?”

“I went out for a walk while you were gone to get some fresh air. I realized that except for last night I hadn’t left the house in a week, so you know, that seemed like a good plan. And I found this ittle bittle kitty cat sitting on the sidewalk meowing his head off, so I picked him up and we stopped at the coffee shop to get him some milk and he drank all the milk out of a saucer like he was in a storybook and then I brought him home.”

“And stuck him in your shirt.”

Halla shrugged. “It’s warm in there, and I figure he’s probably missing his mum, so this way he can get cuddles while I’m double-checking citations.”

“You realize you’re not the cat’s mum, right?”

“No, I thought I was actually a feline.” She stuck her tongue out and Michael fought the urge to lean in and catch it with his teeth. The cat would probably attack him. “Yes, I know I’m not his real mum.”

Michael hooked his finger in the neckline of her shirt and pulled out again only to be met with another clawed attack. He gave up and slouched against the sofa, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “If he’s going to stay in there long-term, he’s going to need to learn how to share.”

The cat meowed again, making an incredibly rude sounding noise.

Michael leaned over and shouted at her chest. “You heard me, cat. You’re not the only one who likes hanging out in there.”

Halla pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. Michael sat back, content for now with having his arm around Halla, who plucked another biscuit out of the package and nibbled on it while she fixed formatting errors in her bibliography. Finally, he asked the question that was gnawing at him. “Halla, baby, are you keeping the cat?”

“No. My flat doesn’t allow pets and I couldn’t leave him with you when you’re gone for weeks at a time.”

“Oh good.”

“Were you worried?”

“I just wasn’t sure how to break it to you that I don’t really care for cats. Especially ones that monopolize your breasts.”

“Don’t worry. Chelsea’s gonna come get him this afternoon. Her mum’s cat died of old age about six months ago and has been talking about getting a new one.”

“Well, that’s alright then.”

Halla giggled and finished her biscuit and Michael flipped on the telly, flipping channels until he found a rugby match. It was a companionable silence between them, unlike the strained fragile quiet of the last week. He kept his arm around her and she would periodically rest her head against his shoulder and eat another biscuit and stare at the telly for a bit. Inevitably she would shake her head and go back to her typing. Michael would try and read the titles of the articles she was citing and would shake his head and go back to the rugby match. Every once in a while, he would lean over and kiss the side of her head.

“Michael?”

He looked over at her but her eyes were still fixed on her computer. “Yeah?”

“So, like, don’t freak out and run away but I need to ask you a question.”

Michael’s brow lowered. That was an odd request from her. Normally it went the other way around. Michael flipped off the telly and turned so he was facing her. “Alright.”

“So, if like, in the future, we like decided to have a kid and stuff, and I was able to get pregnant and everything worked out, and like, I decided I wanted to try to breastfeed, would you, you know, be like…jealous of the baby?”

Michael’s laughter startled the kitten who stuck his head out long enough to meow loudly at Michael before retreating back to his warm nest. “I will not be jealous of our babies,” he reassured her. “I’ll even give them priority access.”

Color crept up the back of Halla’s neck and tinted her ears pink. “Okay. I was just making sure.”

“Though,” he leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “would it be alright if I wanted a taste?”

Her hands stilled on the keyboard. She didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. Just when he was starting to think he’d broken her again, her eyes shifted and she looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Yeah,” she whispered and the blush tinting her skin turned a deeper pink.

His lips brushed against the soft skin of her neck. He’d missed this so much, the easy flirtations and sensuality of the two of them cuddled together, the feather light touch of her hair brushing across his face, and the soft sounds she made in response to his kisses. Even with them making love last night, he knew things weren’t back to where they had been, so he contented himself with the single kiss on her neck before he sat back up.

Halla looked at him out of the corner of her eyes again and then saved the document she was working on and closed her laptop. She fished the kitty out of her shirt. The cat was not happy about this, but while he was loud, he didn’t attempt to shred her hand either. Halla wrapped up the kitty in the blanket from the back of the sofa and tucked him into the corner of the sofa before she stood up and held out her hand to Michael. “Chelsea shouldn’t be here for a few hours. Would you like to make up for lost time with my breasts?”

Michael took her hand and stood up and then picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the staircase. Things might not be all the way back to normal, but they were getting there.


	24. 30 March 2015

Michael paid the cabbie and took his bag from the boot of the taxi, relieved to finally be home after seven weeks away shooting. It had been a tough shoot and he was exhausted, jet lagged, and looking forward to sleeping in his own bed with his girlfriend next to him. He never wanted to go that long without seeing her again. If they had to have been separated, at least they had timed it well, except for having missed the BAFTA after-party because he had forgotten when he had to leave for the location. Halla was defending her dissertation the next day and had spent the last seven weeks working at least as hard as he had. If it hadn’t been for that, he would have flown her out half way through shooting so they could be together for a few days. He’d gotten too used to waking up to her face to go that long without seeing her anymore.

He opened the front door knowing that Halla was there waiting for him. He had texted her when he’d landed and she’d texted back with a pink puffy heart. Based on that communication, he was surprised to find her sitting in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by stacks of paper, crying.

Dropping the suitcase on the entry floor, he crossed the living rooms in a few long strides and scooped her up. “What’s wrong, baby girl?”

Her eyes were bloodshot and her hands were shaking. “I’m going to fail.”

Michael dropped down on the sofa with her and tucked her against his chest. “God above, Halla, you are not going to fail. You found a planet by yourself. Now admittedly, I have no experience with universities and honors and such, but I am fairly certain they don’t fail you for things like that.”

“Not that part. The ‘I found a planet’ part is fine. It’s the other part. The ‘I found a thing in space that doesn’t follow any accepted theory of physics so maybe Einstein was wrong’ part. They’re going to laugh me out of the room.”

“Hasn’t your committee seen your entire dissertation already?”

“Yes,” she sniffed and rubbed a hand across her cheek.

“And they didn’t say anything was wrong, did they?”

“No, but maybe they’re waiting until tomorrow.”

“Is there any reason why they would do that? Nathan seems to be in full support of your work.”

“I’m so scared that I’m going to be failed tomorrow. All this work, this hope, and it’s all going to fall apart.”

Michael shook his head. He’d gotten himself into these panicked fear cycles before over auditions, where nothing anyone could say would make a difference. It was like standing in an open plane door with a parachute strapped to your back. The fear wouldn’t go away until you jumped. Or were pushed. “Nope. When’s the last time you ate something?”

The abrupt topic change took Halla aback. She had to stop and think and finally gave up and shook her head before she slumped against his chest. “I don’t know. I’ve been reviewing non-stop.”

“Then this is what we’re going to do. You know everything in the world and the universe about your topic so you’re going to put away all of these papers while I order take-away and you’re going to eat until even your insatiable appetite is sated, and cuddle and watch _Star Trek_ , and then you’re going to get a good night’s sleep.”

“I can’t. I have to study.”

“No. Trust me on this. I don’t know much about space and stars and invisible planets, but I know about how to put on a performance. You know your lines, Halla. You just have to perform them tomorrow. So, what do you want to eat?”

She bit her bottom lip, looking up at him. Lines traced across her forehead as her brow wrinkled in indecision. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Trust me.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek, swiping back the tangled wisps that framed her face. “Food, relaxation, and sleep will do you better then another six hours studying.”

She took a short breath and then a longer one. “Alright. I’ll trust you.”

Later that night, half-way through the fourth episode of  _Star Trek,_ Michael carried a sleeping Halla to bed, leaving behind two half eaten pizzas, three skewers of chicken satay,  a pan of brownies with only the middle pieces missing, and most of a bag of baby carrots. He’d put them away later, after he got her tucked in. That she didn’t even stir when he picked her up told him everything he needed to know about how much and how well she’d been sleeping, as if the bruises under her eyes didn’t say enough on their own. He’d called his sister after Halla had broken down crying about her dissertation last week while on the phone with him, and had been assured that most people had at least one minor breakdown during the last few weeks, so he’d known this was normal. Still, he’d be glad when this part was over and she could go back to enjoying what she was doing instead of worrying about it.

The next day, he sat in the car park outside the observatory and waited for her as he caught up on two months of emails that hadn’t been serious enough to merit his time on set. He’d insisted on driving her instead of letting her take the train. Just on the slight chance that something disastrous happened and they didn’t pass her, he wanted to be there to catch her before she fell too far. And if she did pass, he wanted to be there to celebrate with her. He’d convinced her this morning that sex in the shower was an Irish good luck tradition, and he hoped that celebrating with her this afternoon would include more of the same. The few hours they had shared since he had come back had barely begun to recharge the Halla reservoir in his heart. Also, she’d dressed in her sexy professor get-up, and he liked looking at her sitting next to him when she was all dolled up like that.

He looked out the window and saw Halla coming down the walk towards him. Her head was down and she was hugging herself like she was cold. His heart sank. They couldn’t have failed her, could they? Not when she was doing something most of them couldn’t even understand? He got out of the car and began to hurry towards her. If they had made her cry, he was going to go punch them. Halla looked up to see him approaching, but it didn’t change the somber expression on her face. Her cheeks were flushed pink, like she’d been crying, and he began to mentally review the names of all of her committee members so he would know who to go punch in the face.

And then the thin line of her mouth began to waver. A few more steps and it had turned into a grin and she began to run to him, her heels clicking on the pavement. Another few seconds and she threw herself at him, and he caught her and swung her in circles as she laughed.

“They called me doctor!”

He kissed her hard on the mouth before he said, “Doctor Halla Jónsdóttir.”

She clapped her hands together so hard it was like she was trying to save Tinkerbell by herself. “It sounds so good! Say it again.”

Michael grinned. “Doctor Halla Jónsdóttir.”

She bounced up and down while she kissed him, unable to control her happiness. “I did it.”

“You did, baby. You totally did.”

She grabbed his face with both hands and pulled it down to her level. “Say it one more time,” she whispered.

“Doctor Halla Jónsdóttir.” He spaced out the words with slow, lingering kisses and she melted into him, her hands making their way up his chest and into his hair. And then she shook herself and grabbed his hand and yanked him towards the observatory. “Come on, you have to come inside and celebrate with me!”

That night, after the celebration with her peers, and the celebratory dinner with her parents and Sören’s family, they had their own celebration back at their house and Michael lost count of the times he said doctor as he kissed her, as he licked her, and as he thrust into her slow and deep, bringing her to orgasm over and over again. And then they slept, curled around each other, a seeming mismatch of actor and astrophysicist. Their relationship didn’t make sense but just like the anomaly that Halla had found, not being able to explain why it worked didn’t make it any less real.


	25. 3 April 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N You can’t read this until you’re somewhere that you can listen to music as well. You HAVE TO LISTEN to the songs that are linked as you read or the story will lose most of its meaning. 
> 
> Also, this may be the cheesiest thing I have ever written. I apologize in advance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the links won't load for you, the songs are, in order, "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel, "All of Me" by John Legend, and "Price Tag" by Jessie J.

Halla rested her head back against Michael’s chest. Even in heels, she still fit comfortably under his chin, and the gentle pressure of his chin on the top of her head meant home to her. His arms were loosely linked around her waist, his fingers absentmindedly sliding over the sleek fabric of her little black dress as they accepted birthday wishes from all of their friends. She’d gone simple with her dress so she could wear her sparkle tights, and to show off the ring that had been Michael’s birthday present to her, a shooting star that wrapped around her finger, its streaming tail studded with diamonds. James’s house was packed. Sören and his wife had come, and her friends from the observatory and some of the faculty were there, and what felt like the entire red carpet from the Oscars as well. Brad Pitt had been in town for some project and he was now in the corner talking to Steve McQueen, Benedict Cumberbatch was laughing at something Natalie Dormer was saying, and Colin Farrell was flirting with Marion Cotillard.

“Having a good birthday?” Michael whispered against her ear.

Halla nodded and took a drink of The Halla, a pink sparkling mocktail that James had invented for the party, garnished with a wedge of starfruit. She wasn’t sure what was in The Michael other than whiskey. “How about you?”

“I’ve got my girl in my arms and she’s happy. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

Halla giggled and wriggled back against his chest. “You’re such a softie when no one can hear you but me.”

“You’re never a softie.”

Halla turned around and tilted her head back so she could look into his face. “What do you mean? I’m so soft I break all the time.”

“No. You’re hard and when you break you shatter into razor-edged pieces.”

Well, that didn’t sound good at all. “It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Remember when you told me that your love was like the moon?” Halla nodded. “I meant it when I said that it was the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. I know you love me. You just aren’t the type who says the words much. Neither am I.  It’s one of the reasons we work.”

Before she could respond, James jumped up on the stage he’d erected at one end of the room. “We’re gonna get the karaoke part of the party started here, and I’m going to make Michael and Halla come up here first and they each have to sing a song to each other that encapsulates their feelings about the other one.” Halla’s mouth dropped in horror and she fought the urge to throw off Michael’s arms and flee. “I’m making them do this because they are two of the most non-romantic people I’ve ever seen. Michael thought Halla was flirting when she called him a fuckweed,” he paused for the laughter to die down, “and as host of the party and Michael’s best friend, my job is to make them suffer as much as possible.”

Halla’s hands shook as she flipped through the catalog, checking to see which songs were available. She paused over “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” but decided not to sing that one. It was more about what he did for her, rather than her feelings about him. She flipped a few more pages and the words jumped out at her. It would be perfect. She grabbed a microphone from James and scowled at him before she climbed up on the stage. “Um, so, we’ve got this weird mix of astrophysicists and acting type people in here, and I’m just reminding you all that I’m part of that first group so the stage is not my home, and when I asked for a karaoke party I forgot that this time I’d be sober and wow there’s a lot of you.” A ripple of laughter went through the crowd. “I’m just glad I’m going first so I don’t have to follow whatever amazing performance Mr. I Used To Be In A Band is going to put on.”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Michael yelled out. “Black Sabbath doesn’t have any love songs.”

“Yeah, that’s reassuring.” She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “I can jibber jabber about space until the end of time, but I suck at sharing my feelings, so James isn’t in charge of my birthday parties ever again and part of me is tempted to just do “Touch Myself,” but I’m not going to.”  Michael booed loudly which made everyone else laugh. Halla was already blushing, but that just made it worse. “So, my attempt at something a bit more romantic than calling him a caveman.” She stared at her feet [as the music started](http://youtu.be/FHO6a2H-pqY). It was a quiet piano. Halla knew she was too nervous to do anything big and dramatic. Besides, this said everything she would need to say. It was oddly cathartic to sing about her past pain, and then their burgeoning romance. There had never been pretense there. He had known from the start she was damaged goods, though not the full extent. Her silence had been in defense, believing that he really would leave her if he knew the immensity of her scars. His words tonight, that she was never soft, scared her. He had tried to laugh it off, but she knew that he needed something more from her than she was giving him. And so this song. She knew it by heart – Billy Joel was one of her father’s favorite musicians – so she could keep her eyes closed and not see the huge room of people watching her bare her heart. But when it got to the end, she made herself look at him only to see that he had tears in his eyes.

She kept her eyes fixed on him, ignoring everyone else, as she sang the last few lines.

_So I would choose to be with you_  
That’s if the choice were mine to make   
But you can make decisions too   
And you can have this heart to break   
And so it goes, and so it goes   
And you’re the only one who knows.

There was silence for several seconds after she finished singing before everyone burst into raucous cheering. Michael stepped up onto the makeshift stage, no need for stairs with those long legs, and she tried to hide her face against his chest but he kissed her. “I love you, Michael,” she whispered.

“I’m not going to be able to top that, baby. That was beautiful.”

“Maybe  _you_ should try singing, ‘Touch Myself.’ That’ll get a reaction.”

He squeezed her bum. “You go sit. I’ve got this under control.”

He held Halla’s hand as she hopped off the stage and claimed the seat in front that he’d just vacated.

“I was going to do “She Blinded Me with Science,” but it turns out they don’t have that one in the catalog so I’m going to have to go with my second choice.”

[The music started, another piano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450p7goxZqg). Halla didn’t recognize the song. The opening lines were about her smart mouth and beautiful mind, and she knew he’d listened to this song a lot, even though he never listened to music like this around her. She started crying in the first chorus, all of him and all of her, even her imperfections, even her crazy, and tears dripped soundlessly down her face as he sang to her. He wasn’t shy; his eyes were opened and he was watching her the whole time. Towards the end he sat down on the edge of the stage and held out his hand to her and she, blushing to the roots of her hair, took it. He pulled her to him and she sat on his thigh as he finished the song, though she hid her face in the crook of his neck rather than letting him look at her.

When the applause and cheering had died down, James stole back the microphone. Michael picked up Halla and took back the seat she’d recently vacated, installing her on his lap, just as James said, “Well, if that didn’t give you cavities, here’s some more sugar,” and launched into an enthusiastic and disturbingly choreographed version of “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

From there on out, it was good humored chaos. Michael and Halla both made their way back up on stage multiple times. Michael favored old-school metal. AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.” The cast and crew from  _12 Years_ who were there did a raucous version of “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places.” Halla got together with Anne-Marie, Chelsea and Elsie to do “Say My Name.” The other girls had enough alcohol in their systems to make them get into the music with salacious dancing which encouraged Halla to let loose as well. While Beyoncé’s career was definitely safe, she caught a glimpse of Michael watching the movement of her hips with a hunger in his expression that wasn’t fueled by the whiskey in his glass.

He’d pulled her aside when she climbed off the stage that time, found a quiet alcove away from the main party and pressed her against the wall. “Halla, you are fucking perfect.” His arousal was evident as his hips rested against her.

“You liked that?” she asked hesitantly. It had been weird trying to dance sexily in front of an audience. When it was just her and Michael dancing, he brought out the movement in her body. It was a way of communicating with him that didn’t need words, but she didn’t think anyone other than him could understand it.

Michael kissed her hard, and Halla sighed into the kiss, opening her mouth for his demanding tongue. Her fingernails, freshly painted a pale pink, dug into his sides as she held him flush against her body. “Yeah, I liked it, Halla. I liked seeing you having fun and not worrying about what anyone else thought. And I thoroughly enjoyed watching your body move.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind for if I get back up there tonight.”

“Watching you be happy is the best birthday present. You’ve had too much sadness in the last year. This year’s going to be your year of happy.”

She cocked her head to the side, trying to remember the last time she’d been happy for a whole year. “You think I get a whole year of happy?”

“We’ll figure it out together. You get a whole a year of happy, baby. You deserve it.”

Halla grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back down for a kiss, only letting go when she was breathing so hard that her lungs ached. “If this wasn’t our birthday party, I would so take you home right now and ride you until you begged for mercy.”

“Fuck,” Michael breathed out as he kissed her again. Finally, they stumbled back out to the party, Halla walking in front of Michael to hide the evidence of what they’d been up to. He got up much faster than he went back down.

Later that night, after hopping herself up on birthday cake for courage, Halla took to the stage again. [She knew the song she’d chosen by heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI). She had most of the singer’s songs in her iPod and would bust them out whenever she needed to cheer up. She started swaying as soon as the beat started. Doing her best pop star impression, she couldn’t help lifting one arm over head as she sang. Michael was leaning against the far wall, his arms folded over his chest, with the biggest shit-eating grin she’d ever seen on his face. When it got to ‘we don’t need your money’ she winked at him as she rubbed her fingers together in his direction, making him laugh.

She was half way through the song when she realized she’d forgotten about the rapping section.  A second before she was convinced that she was going to face the utter humiliation of trying to rap in front of an audience, Michael jumped on the stage, grabbed a microphone, and began to rap. Their friends went wild. Halla had no idea when he’d learned the song, though she guessed it was popular enough that he’d heard it on the radio. Halla couldn’t stop laughing as he made an amazingly good rapper, though his accent sat a little odd on the ear. He gestured to the audience as he got to the end of his section, “And then everyone sing, It’s not about the money.”

Halla’s voice was drowned out as everybody began to sing along, and Michael wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her against his body again. His hand rested on the small of her back as they danced together and she continued to sing. Her cheeks hurt from smiling as the song came to an end, and Michael leaned down to her. “This is just the start, baby. Just the start of your year of happy.”

“Our year,” she corrected him. “It’s going to be  _our_  year of happy.”

[#a ](http://tumblr.com/tagged/a-year-in-the-life)


	26. 12 April 2015

The commentators were discussing the most important match-ups in the Scotland – England rugby match that was about to start when Halla stepped in front of the television and turned it off. James’s head snapped back. “What did you do that for?”

Michael knew what was coming so he just sat back and smiled. He sort of wished that he had some popcorn to go with his Guinness.

Halla folded her arms across her chest. “Before you can watch the match, you have to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Sing “God Save the Queen.””

James carefully put down his beer on the coffee table and then rubbed his ears, certain he had misheard her. “No! Are you out of your bleeding mind?”

“Sing “God Save the Queen.” You made me get up and sing all emotional stuff and cry in front of everybody. This is my revenge.”

James surged to his feet, his mouth opened in horror. “You can’t make me sing “God Save the Queen” when we’re about to play England. That’s like asking me to commit treason.” He pounded his fist against his chest, covered in the blue and white of the Scottish flag.

“I’m just saying, I’m going to stand here in front of the television until you do, and Michael tends to get angry when people touch me without my permission.”

James looked at Michael. Michael shrugged and took a sip from his bottle. “You made her cry. There’s nothing I can do it about it.”

He looked back at Halla who was calmly standing in front of the television, her arms folded and smiling serenely like she wasn’t wreaking havoc upon his eternal soul. “I don’t know the words.”

Halla reached behind her and grabbed a piece of paper and held it out to him. “I printed the lyrics.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know the tune.”

Michael pressed a button on his iPad and the introduction to the song began to play. James glared at him. “You’re in on this too?”

Michael held up his hands helplessly. “Like I said, you made her cry. It’s beyond my control.”

“You’re laughing, you bastard. You think this is funny.”

Michael stopped trying to hide it and let loose with a howl of laughter at the panicked distress on James’s face. “Of course I do. It’s not like Ireland’s playing.”

James’s mouth scrunched together in a grimace but he grabbed the paper out of Halla’s hand and scanned the lyrics. “Fine.” Michael started the song over and James rolled his eyes but began to sing sounding like a disgruntled teenager, “God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen,” and Halla smiled happily as he sang all three verses. Her head bobbed along with the melody. When he was done, she turned the television back on. “Thank you. That was beautiful.”

James made a growling noise as he sat back down. “You realize I’ll get you back for this, right?”

“Of course. I have just one thing to say to you.” She did her best karate pose and held out one arm towards his. She beckoned twice with a quick flip of her fingers. “Bring it.”

James laughed at her attempt to appear threatening while wearing pink ruffles and a long flowery skirt. “Are you trying to be Morpheus?”

“I think I would be Trinity, right?” She looked at Michael who nodded. They had watched  _The Matrix_  a few nights earlier as part of Michael’s project to have her watch the most iconic movies of all times.  Halla had avoided it previously because she didn’t like Keanu Reeves and Michael had forbidden her to watch the rest of the series. “Okay, I’m going to go read a book. You two have fun.” She kissed Michael and then went up the stairs, serenaded by James very loudly singing “Flower of Scotland.”

A few hours later, Michael went up the stairs and found Halla curled up around his pillow sound asleep. She’d changed into one of his shirts and her book was open on the bed next to her. He picked up her book and placed one of her hair ties on the page before he closed it, and then stripped down to his pants before he crawled into bed with her.

She rolled over and wrapped an arm around him. “Who won?” she asked as she burrowed into his side.

“England. James is pretty sure it’s his fault for singing God Save the Queen.”

Halla giggled. “Sports fans don’t understand causality.”

“Just don’t ever make me sing it when Ireland’s playing.”

She shook her head and rubbed sleepily at her face. “No, you have to be all shoulder to shoulder and unbowed heads and hearts of steel and stuff.”

Apparently she had been paying attention to all those Ireland rugby matches he watched. “Something like that.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. She wasn’t quite ready to open her eyes yet, and Michael was warm and cozy and nice to rest against. “There’s a problem though.” She held up a single finger.

“What’s that?”

“You,” she poked him somewhere around his heart, “don’t have a heart of steel. It’s all candy floss and marshmallow fluff.

Michael slowly stroked her hair. He loved these sleepy conversations with her. Too often their mornings were hurried as she had to catch a train or he had a meeting to get to. She was more sentimental when she was only half awake. “No, I think that’s your heart. Once you get past the hard candy coating, of course.”

Her mouth curved against his skin. “Then what’s your heart made of?”

“Guinness and cigarette butts.”

She giggled. “I like your butt. But no, your heart is made of nicer things than that. It’s my happy spot. So like,” she yawned and sat up and stretched, both hands reaching for the ceiling before finally opening her eyes, “a giant bathtub with bubbles and a Guinness for you and cherry coke for me, and wet cuddles and sexy fun times.”

“That’s a very specific heart.”

She flopped down on top of him, earning a gentle “oof” from Michael, and stretched out so her nose touched the tip of his. “I know. It was made just for me.” His eyes were so amazingly beautiful, even this close where they almost morphed into one. It was easy to get lost in them.

“My heart is just for you, baby.” He kissed her softly as he stroked his hands down her back and let them come to a rest cupping her arse.

“I know.” Halla kissed him in return, her nails gently scratching over his scalp just the way he liked until he was purring. She loved the feel of his rumbling chest under hers. “And mine fits right inside yours. You keep it safe.”

Michael’s eyes had closed under the caressing touch of Halla’s hands, but they slowly opened and he stared deeply into her eyes. Halla’s body rose and sank as he took a deep breath. “I need your help.”

“With what?”

“You know I love you, right?”

Her hands came to a halt. Those were never good words. “Yes.”

“And you know that the press for  _Macbeth_  starts next week, right?”

She wriggled happily. “Yes. Chelsea has picked out an amazing dress for me to wear to the London premiere.” She couldn’t wait for Michael to see her in it. He was going to die.

He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the sparkle fade from her smile. “I had a relationship with one of the actresses during filming.”

Halla pushed herself up and sat back, resting on his stomach. His hands tightened on her hips or she would have climbed off. “Oh.” She shouldn’t be surprised by that, should she? She had been the one to take off to a foreign country with no clue given as to what would happen when she returned.

“It was while you were in Hungary, and nothing has happened since we’ve been together, but I’ll be spending a lot of time with her during press events and premieres and I want you to trust me, but I  _need_ you not to trust me too much. It’s really easy to fall back into those kind of arrangements.”

Halla went over her memories of Michael hugging Marion Cotillard at their birthday party. It hadn’t seemed like anything inappropriate, but of course, she’d been there watching. “Right. And she was playing your wife so of course,” she continued on but he interrupted her.

“No, no. It wasn’t Marion. It was the actress playing Lady Macduff.”

Halla had no idea who she was. She’d have to go visit IMDB later and see. “Oh.” That seemed to be the extent of her ability to respond right now. She shook herself mentally. Alright. This was no big deal. He asked for her help just like she asked for his so many times. She knew how hard it was to break old habits and old bonds. “So what do you need me to do?”

Michael’s hands relaxed as he realized Halla wasn’t going to get upset or run. He stroked them slowly up and down her sides, savoring the delicate feel of her skin. “Check in with me every day while I’m gone. Maybe a few times a day. Help me remember why I love you so much.”

She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose. “I can do that.”

Michael caught her face in his hands and held her gently. “I don’t love her. I never loved her. I just want to be safe. I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes flickered across her face, searching for a sign that she believed him.

“Well, let me give you your first reminder of why you love me.”

Her face slipped from between his hands as she bent to kiss his chin. She slid further back so she was resting right over his groin as she kissed down his throat. Halla gently rocked against him, not wanting to exert too much pressure this soon, and felt the first stirrings of his response to her. She continued to kiss over his chest, across his shoulders, down his arms as her hands smoothed over his skin, nails teasing his muscles into rippling responses.

Michael pulled her shirt off, tossing it aside before his hands closed over her breasts. She stayed sitting up as he teased her nipples, tugging them into perfect raspberry tips before letting them go.  His hands slid down her sides to her thong and he pulled at the tiny strip of blue fabric crossing her hips. “Take it off or tear it off?” he asked.

Halla laughed and rolled off of him. “I like this pair,” she protested as she shimmied them down her hips. Michael took advantage of the lull to shed his pants and Halla reached for his cock when he laid back down. He groaned as her fingers wrapped around the shaft and Halla stroked slowly up and down, bringing him to his full length and hardness. She traced the veins that stood out against the delicate skin, first with her fingers and then feeling the warmth of them pulsing against her tongue. Michael gathered her hair in one hand so he could watch her, and she fixed her eyes on his as she took the head of his cock into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it.

His breathing grew ragged as she sucked and licked, her fist continuing to pump up and down with the perfect amount of pressure, just the way she knew he liked it. She cupped his balls, rolling them gently in her palm. They were tightening up against his body and his cock was throbbing in her mouth. Slowly she dragged her mouth off of his cock before quickly moving to straddle his hips. She guided the tip of his cock right to her entrance. “I want to feel you come in my pussy,” she murmured before she began to sink onto him. Michael grabbed her hips and thrust upward, too close to coming to wait, and she cried out in shock at the feel of him filling her so suddenly. His hips bucked as he held her steady and she braced her hands against his stomach. The muscles tightened and flexed with every push of his hips and she decided to just ride out his orgasm. The sound of the deep guttural noises he was making as he fucked her made goosebumps rise all over her skin, and she tightened her legs against his thighs, not wanting to slip from the force of his thrusts. His head was thrashing against the pillow as he grimaced, his teeth gritting together for the last few irresistible drives into her body, and then she felt the hot spill of him scalding inside her.

His breath came out in short noisy gasps as his chest heaved but he quickly licked two fingers and then rubbed them against her clit. He was still hard inside her and he wanted her to come before he softened. His fingers circled, finding her already wet and swollen, and he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her down to him. “Come on, baby. Let me give you what you want.” Her hips rocked against his hand and her cheeks flushed as he pulled her higher, wanting her to have what she had given him. “Come for me, Halla. Come for me; just for me.”

Her mouth was opened as she panted for breath and he bit her bottom lip, tugging it into his mouth and sucking on it. Her hands shook frantically as she grabbed his shoulders, her eyes squeezing shut, almost looking like she was in pain. Michael flicked his thumb against her clit and she wailed, crying his name as her whole body went stiff and then began to tremble. He held her against his chest, one hand slowly rubbing her back until she said, “And that, my darling caveman, is just  _one_  of the reasons you love me.”


	27. 5 May 2015

Michael rested his hand on Halla’s knee, the weave of the white fishnet tights she was wearing bumpy against his palm. Her skin was so pale you could barely tell she was wearing them, even up close. Her knee trembled under his hand and he was fairly certain she was more nervous than he was.  “You going to be alright tonight?”

Her smile was bright and cheerful. “Of course! As long as Lady Macduff keeps her hands to herself everything’s going to be fine.”

Maybe she was just bouncing from excitement rather than shaking from nerves. “Halla, she’s been good and so have I this entire time.” The first night that the cast had been back together was for the world premiere. She had offered and he had declined and explained he was in a happy relationship. She had respected that, and while the last few weeks had been lonely, Halla’s constant stream of random text messages, videos of snakes eating various prey, photos of bizarre and beautiful things she saw on her daily journeys around Cambridge, and nightly phone calls had kept him from feeling tempted to violate her trust.

“I know, and as long as she keeps being good then we’re all going to be one big happy family. But if she gets all touchy feely with you…” She curved her fingers into claws and made sounds like a pissed off cat. At least he was fairly sure that’s what they were supposed to be. She wasn’t as good at sound effects as he was.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything happen that might ruin this evening with you. The only thing that could make you look more beautiful than you do right now is if you would smile.”

Halla rolled her eyes at him. “Could you possibly be any more cheesy?” Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but smile in response. “You really like the dress?” She smoothed her hand over the glittering gold shift dress. The minute she had seen it she had known it was perfect. Tiny gold sequins started at the shoulder and then grew in size as they descended the dress, mixing with white sequins. The last several inches of the dress were solid white.  She honestly didn’t know what she would do without Chels to help get her dressed for these things. She couldn’t afford Oscar de la Renta on her own, though Michael was slowly building her jewellery collection. Between her necklace that she never took off and the ring he had given her for her birthday, the only baubles she had borrowed had been a pair of pearl earrings that dangled from long gold wires.

“I think you’re gorgeous. It’s sexy and sparkly and very you.” He leaned closer so he was right up against her ear. “And with you wearing your hair down, it makes me want to play with it. Grab it all in my hand and use it to guide you to right where I want you.”

Her entire body prickled with a sudden rush of heat. “You need to stop talking like that or you’re going to tear your trousers.”

The car came to a halt and the sound of the crowd outside penetrated the vehicle. “You ready for this?”

“Yep. But if I suddenly pitch over, try and grab me before I land on my face.”

He kissed her on the cheek, not wanting to smear her lipstick. “Don’t lock your knees and remember to keep breathing.”

The door opened and Michael was through into a harsh silhouette by the flashes of a sea of cameras. He turned to help her out of the car and Halla quickly decided she was not ready for this. She had assumed it would be like the premieres they had been to when she had been his assistant or for their first date. Somehow she had never realized that the stars of the show got an entirely different level of media scrutiny. She clung to his hand and walked with him, reminding herself that all she had to do was stand there and look pretty. It was like watching an explosion – very bright but only for a very short instant. She was still seeing flashing dots of light dance in front of her eyes when an assistant appeared and lead her away.

Inside she met up with James and Anne-Marie. James was there not only as a friend, but to mock Michael’s Scottish accent mercilessly. She was much more comfortable with this part of the evening than the part that took place in front of the cameras. She was asking James and Anne-Marie why they didn’t just have a few photographers and then share the pictures when they were joined by Lady Macduff. She had dyed blonde hair and pale skin and was wearing an elegant, floor-length black dress.

“You must be Halla. I’ve heard so much about you, though I admit, you look different than I was expecting.”

Halla had to look way up to meet her eyes. The woman was tall, even taller than Michael. Halla glanced quickly down to see if she had on heels as well. “What were you expecting?” she asked as looked back up at the smirking face.

Her nose wrinkled. “Less androgynous angel and more femme fatale.”

Tall girl was going to go come in here and tell her she looked pre-pubescent? Well, two could play at that game. “Well, I didn’t have any expectations for you to disprove since I’ve never heard about you at all.”

James and Anne-Marie looked at each other, eyes wider than normal. “I think what she meant to say,” James jumped in hastily, “was Michael hasn’t told her much about you.”

“Just that you two fucked to pass the time while you were filming, but other than that, no.” She picked up her drink and took a sip, smiling fiercely with her eyes. Tyra Banks had nothing on her, thank you very much.

The woman’s nostrils flared delicately and her mouth pursed for a moment. “As opposed to you, who gets filmed while being fucked?”

Halla’s hand shook as she carefully put her glass down. “What did you just say?”

“Wasn’t that you? The amateur porn star Michael is dating? I saw a thing on the internet about it before it all got hushed up. Gone respectable now?”

Halla wanted to slap her. Or claw her face like she had teased Michael about doing. Or throw something at her. Something heavy. Or pointy. Or heavy _and_ pointy. But she was going to be an adult about this. This was Michael’s night and Michael’s co-star and while a bit of verbal bitchiness was one thing, a full-on smack down drag out fight was entirely another. She was not going to do a single thing to damage Michael’s reputation, any more than his association with her had already damaged him apparently. She smiled politely. “You should go talk to someone else now.”

“Why, worried that Michael would change his mind if he saw us side by side?”

Anne-Marie wrapped an arm around Halla’s shoulder. The two of them knew what she had been through, even though neither of them had seen the news article. James stepped forward, shielding Halla with his body. “You really should go. Now.”

Off she went with a huff and a hairflip. Halla named constellations in alphabetical order as she watched her stalk away. Even furious, she wished she could wear a long dress like that, but that would require getting something custom tailored rather than just borrowing from Chelsea’s boss. The dress she had on was supposed to hit mid-thigh, but the final row of large white sequins ended right above her knees. “We’re not telling Michael, okay? This is his night and I don’t want it ruined.”

“Are you sure?” Anne-Marie asked. “He should know that you’re getting harassed, especially by a co-star.”

“Not tonight. It will just cause problems and I’m not causing him any more problems. We are going to put on our happy faces, alright?” They both nodded. By the time Michael finally joined them, Halla had managed to calm down enough that she could smile at him. “Done dazzling the press?”

“For now. I think I’m going to go grab a smoke before this whole thing gets underway.”

Halla slipped her hand into his. “I’ll go with you.”

As they walked to an exit, Michael smiled down at her. “You sure you’re allowed to be around smoke in that fancy dress of yours?”

“Yes. They have to clean it anyway.”

“I guess I have to be careful about taking it off of you tonight, don’t I?”

Halla giggled as the slap of cold air hit her face, blowing her mind clear of the anger that clouded it. “Don’t worry. I’m wearing my own knickers.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Do they have gold sequins on them?”

She looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. “Possibly.”

Michael changed the topic before it got any more intimate, not wanting a repeat of Halloween. He lit his cigarette and took a deep drag off of it before putting his lighter back in his pocket. Halla watched him silently for a minute before she reached over and plucked the cigarette from between his fingers and took a deep drag. The smoke filled her lungs and she held it there for a moment, remembering all those nights she’d ended with a cigarette and a beer when nothing seemed to hurt before she slowly exhaled, the thin wisp of smoke darker than her hair. She handed the cigarette back to him.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

She shook her head, still tasting the smoke on her tongue. “I don’t.”

Michael raised an eyebrow before he took a puff. “That was not the first time you’ve smoked,” he observed calmly.

“I’ve given up a lot of things.”

He tipped her face up to meet his and searched her eyes. “Do I need to be worried about you resuming anything else you’ve given up?”

“I don’t think so.”

She turned his hand so she could take another puff on the cigarette without taking it from him. Again she held the smoke for a long moment before she opened her mouth, letting the smoke escape before inhaling it back through her nostrils.

 “Good.” He rubbed his hand against his mouth. “Because I have to admit, it’s a little sexy watching you do that.”

The image of being towered over by a bleached blonde in a long black dress popped bitterly into her head. “ _I’m_ a little sexy. Ain’t gonna get a big sexy out of a package this size.”

He took one last inhale before stubbing out the cigarette butt and pulling her against him. “Oh you are wrong, gorgeous. You’re almost more sexy than I can handle.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. This was much nicer than craning her neck to see that giantess. “Almost?”

“I’ll keep handling your sexy as long as you let me.”

Halla laughed and rested her forehead against his chest and took a deep breath. The overtones of his scent always shifted depending on how long it had been since his last cigarette or what he was wearing, but under the smoke and the silk wool was still him. She inhaled deeply, holding the scent in her lungs before slowly exhaling. He was more calming than a carton of cigarettes. His hand smoothed over her hair, long and stick straight, before she pulled back. “We should go back inside before someone comes looking for us.”

It was easy to forget the hurt and irritation when she was snuggled in Michael’s side in a dark theater. He had one arm around her so he could hold her close while leaving her hands free to eat popcorn. He had especially asked that there be fancy popcorn available tonight, and she had both her container and his sitting in her lap.

Halla found the experience of watching Michael on screen with him sitting right next to her extremely odd. He kept watching her to see her reactions and she finally hissed, “Stop watching me.”

“I’ve seen the film before.”

“You’ve seen me before, too. Stop watching me. It’s weirding me out.”

Michael chuckled under his breath and went back to watching the screen. She was emotive enough in her body language for him to be able to understand what she was feeling and his mind drifted back to the first time she had sat next to him in a theatre and screamed at a scary moment and he had held her hand for the rest of the movie. That had been the beginning of the end for him, or maybe the end of the beginning. He’d had a slight and controllable crush on her before that night, but holding her hand while she ate popcorn in the dark, the changing lights of the film flickering over her face, highlighting first the angle of her cheekbones, and then illuminating the natural pout of her lips, and then emphasizing the slightest upturn of the tip of her nose had completed her shift her from assistant to woman in his eyes. He had never tired of looking at her from that night on, and he didn’t think he ever would.

That night was the first step to their fight in Rotterdam. He’d felt something more than just the supple skin of her hand that night. He had been fairly sure she had as well, but she kept avoiding him every time he tried to bring it up. The remembrance of that night on the balcony swept through him, making him shift in his seat to adjust the fit of his trousers. The first time he had kissed her, the first time she had whimpered his name, the warmth of her thigh, and then being shoved away, insisting she couldn’t be his whore. That she couldn’t fuck him while he paid her. As much as those words had hurt then, they hurt even more now that he knew her history.

He had plucked her burning body from the shower a day and a half later, and a day after that she had ran. He had spent the next several months alternating between trying to lose himself in work and wondering if she was ever going to burst back into his life. He would have called her to make sure she was staying sober if he’d had her number, but she’d changed it when she sent back the iPad and mobile, and he didn’t have it. When he had called James to ask if he had it, James hadn’t had the heart to tease him; he’d simply apologized for not having it.

He took her hand and squeezed it. She linked her fingers with his and dropped her head against his shoulder. Everything had turned out alright. Better than alright. Those months apart had been essential for Halla to get her life back together, and now when reporters asked who his date was, he got to call her Dr. Halla Jónsdóttir. Now if she would just hear about post-doctoral positions. That was what they were both waiting on to figure out what the next phase of their life would be like. She’d applied at several places in England, but also in the United States, Australia, and Japan. She would never ask him to uproot his life and move somewhere with her. He wouldn’t let her move to another country without him.

As Halla watched the action play out on the screen, she decided that Michael was the best actor ever. She realized that she was probably biased and her sample size was small but she was confident that she was correct. He was a genius at what he did. It was a completely different genius than her own, but genius he was. She just hoped that when they had a baby, it didn’t get her total klutziness and Michael’s lack of interest in school. The poor child would fall off the stage at its first audition.

Halla lost track of the film for a moment as she realized she was thinking seriously about what their future child would be like. And it wasn’t a generic baby, it was specific baby thoughts. With a specific man. And she didn’t want to run away and take a decontamination shower to get the boy pheromones off of her. She knew she wasn’t ready quite yet, but for the first time, the thought of having a baby made her smile. The realization made her warm all over and she shoved another handful of popcorn in her mouth before she thought about it anymore.

As the credits began to roll and the applause shook the seats, she leaned over to kiss him on his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too, baby girl.” He kissed her quickly. “I have to go make a speech now, but after that, what say you and me dance the night away?”

She nodded as a lump rose in her throat. He’d felt horrible about having to cancel their date to the BAFTA after-party and he had promised that he would dance every song with her at this one.

At the end of the night, after keeping his word and dancing with her until her feet ached and she begged for mercy, he carried her out to their waiting car. The driver opened the door and he climbed in the backseat, settling her in his lap. “So, what did you think of this evening?”

“I thought the film was fantastic, I thought you were fantasticer, and I’ll tell Chels to keep an eye out for something I can wear to the Oscars next year.”

Michael laughed and combed his fingers through her hair, smoothing out the tangles a night of dancing had left in it. “Don’t get your hopes up, darling.”

She brushed away his warning with a wave of her hand. “You’ve got like half a dozen films coming out this year. The only difficulty the Academy is going to have is deciding which one to nominate you for.”

“That’s very flattering. Your praise means more to me than an Oscar.”

She snorted indelicately. “Whatever. Though we’re about the same size. Get me some gold body paint and you could set me on your shelf.”

He let his hand rub and up and down her arm. “You don’t belong on a shelf. You belong right where you are. In my lap and in my arms.”

She giggled and kissed him on his chin. The rough rasp of stubble tickled against her lips. “I’m glad you stopped there, because if you said ‘in my heart’ I was going to barf.”

“Eh. Too sappy.”

“I know.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and yawned widely.  “I have gold sequined knickers on,” she said softly.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. I found them when I was looking for Wonder Woman unders and couldn’t resist.” She yawned again. “I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep before we get to have any fun with them.”

He felt her body going limp against him and tightened his arms around her. “How about when we get home, I take your dress off very carefully, tuck you into bed, and then we can have gold sequined knickers fun in the morning?”

She nodded, her eyes already drifting shut. “’S where I belong. In your arms, in your lap, and in your bed.” After a few seconds, he could have sworn he heard her whisper, “And in your heart.”


	28. 6 May 2015

Michael woke to the sound of Halla screaming. He lurched upright as she came running through the door and jumped onto their bed. She was waving her mobile at him and still shrieking as she bounced, her hair flying out around her.

“What is going on?” The curtains were only open a little, so there wasn’t much light penetrating their bedroom, but the noise she was making more than compensated for it when it came to a late night and one too many drinks.

“Nathan emailed me and told me that they all met to go over the post-doc position applications and they are awarding one of them to me and I’ll get an official letter in a few days but the position is mine if I want it!” She jumped up and down and Michael couldn’t help but wonder when an astrophysicist clad only in gold sequined knickers bouncing on his bed had become such an essential part of his life. She collapsed next to him and shoved her mobile in his face. “Look!”

Michael read through the e-mail with a smile. “This is fabulous, baby.”

“Do you know what this means?” She was bouncy even sitting down, unable to control her excitement.

“You have a job this fall?”

“Well, yes, but it also means I don’t have to move! I get to stay here.” She bounced emphatically, as if it were in that exact spot she was planning to stay.

Michael was thrilled for her, but a gnawing worry kept him from expressing it. “Is this the post-doc you wanted?”

“Of course.”

“Not because of us. Is this your dream job? I don’t want you turning down Australia or New Mexico or all the other positions you’re going to be offered because of me. I can move.”

Halla grinned and leaned forward to kiss him until he smiled again. “No, this is perfect for me. I have an array I can target, the head of the observatory is my mentor, and getting the offer means at least half of the faculty voted for me, so I’m making headway there and I love Cambridge and the fact that I’m close enough to you to spend most nights with you is just the icing on top of the cake. This is the one I wanted the most.”

“Well then, congratulations baby. I’m fucking proud of you.”

Her smile collapsed like a maltreated soufflé. “Though, I guess, I mean, we really haven’t talked about, like, if we’re going to be together still?”

“What are you talking about? Why would we break up now?”

“Well, because we started this thing with me going to do my dissertation and then I’d have to get a job somewhere and it was like a built in expiration date because I’d be leaving but then I’m staying oh crap there goes your easy exit and I just wasn’t sure if I was assuming that you’d be staying with me and…,” she trailed off as Michael shook his head.

He held out his arms to her and she crawled into his lap. “Lap, arms, bed, heart,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around her. “That doesn’t change. I would have followed you wherever the stars led you, baby.”

“Even when I’m bad for you?”

He looked down at her to see her chewing on her thumbnail. “How are  _you_ , Dr. Sparklepants, bad for  _me_?”

She snorted softly and then frowned again. “People know about my past.”

“I don’t care.”

Halla squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to have this conversation but felt like he needed to know. “Co-stars know about it. That means directors and casting agents and producers could know and I don’t want to damage your reputation.”

He gripped her chin and she opened her eyes. “I could give a flying fuck about my reputation. Anyone who knows you now is proud of who you are and what you’ve become. And the people I want to work with aren’t the ones who are going to care about the shit that happened to you. They’ll be proud of you for what you’ve overcome, alright?”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” He watched her face, hoping for a smile to appear that never emerged.  Instead she became fascinated with her manicure. “Who said something last night?”

She didn’t say anything. “We’ve had this discussion before, so for you to be bringing it up now means something happened. Who said something?”

Halla’s shoulders sagged. “Why did she have to be so tall?” she whispered.

Michael let out a sigh. “What did she say?”

“She asked if I was the porn star Michael was dating.”

It took a second for Michael’s heart to start beating again and a few more for his mouth to regain function. “She said what?”

“Not like out of the blue.  She said that she was expecting someone different from the way you talked about me. Like that I would be an actual woman instead of an androgynous angel.”

Michael forced himself to gently stroke her hair, when all the voices in his brain were yelling for him to go hurt the person that had made her sad. How had she managed to target Halla’s exact weaknesses? “You looked like a beautiful woman last night.”

“Well, apparently I looked like a prepubescent boy to her, and I got mad because she was all tall and stuff while she said it, so I told her she didn’t have any expectations to overcome since I’d never heard of her at all and James tried to smooth it over and say that Michael probably hadn’t talked much about her and I said that the only thing he’d told me was that you two fucked to pass the time when you weren’t filming and she said that’s better than getting fucked on film and then I got mad and James made her go away because I couldn’t say anything else or I was gonna climb up on a chair and claw her eyes out.”

It almost would have been funny if she wasn’t so hurt by the whole thing. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

“Because I didn’t want to ruin your evening. I didn’t want to cause any more problems than I’ve already caused you.”

“You don’t cause me problems, baby.”

Halla gave him the side-eye. “That week? I know you cancelled stuff so you could be here with me. And you broke Kyle’s nose. I’m pretty sure that counts as a problem.”

“No. That’s me taking care of my girlfriend. And that’s not a problem, Halla. You kept me on the straight and narrow the last little bit. Was all the extra time and effort that took a problem?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love you. I wanted to be able to help.”

“Exactly.”

She flumped against his chest and covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry for being rude to her.”

Michael tugged her hands away from her face. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself instead of running away.”

“It’s just difficult because she’s so pretty and tall and stuff.” She stared at her hands, pushing back her cuticles with a fingernail instead of looking at him.

“Baby, you know I think you’re gorgeous and perfect, right?”

“Yes.”  She didn’t sound happy about it though.

“But you still don’t feel that way.”

“I’m trying to. I felt beautiful last night and then she showed up and I don’t like meeting women you’ve had sex with, okay? Because all I’m thinking is, ‘I bet she doesn’t have to stand on the bed to kiss him’ or ‘She didn’t have to,’” she stopped as he put his hand over her mouth.

“Alright stop. You had sex with Henry. Do you think I worried about being compared to literally Superman?”

“No?”

“I did. At first. But after the first time we made love, it didn’t matter. You know why?”

“Because you had an orgasm and that makes everything better?”

Even when she was sad and down on herself, she still had a sense of humor. It was one of the things he loved about her. “No. Because  _you_  had an orgasm. Three actually. We work together. Do we have to compensate for your height sometimes? Yes. Do I care? Fuck no. Because we can do things together that I’ve never done with any other woman because of your height as well. I love that I can just pick you up and flip you over and position you right where I want you so I can fuck you until you’re screaming my name or I can lay over you and shelter you entirely with my body while we make love. You’re tiny and adorable and pink and god help me you’re the girliest thing I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, and you don’t need to be an amazon to knock me flat on my arse, baby. You do it just by walking into a room.”

The man could deliver a line. She wondered how much of that was because he was an actor and how much of it was because she was madly in love with him so every time he got romantic like that she got swoony, even though she would die rather than admit it. A little part of her heart believed him, though, refusing to write it off to his skill as a performer. “You make me being short sound like a good thing.”

He kissed down the center of her face, her brow, the line of her nose, her mouth and then her chin. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you, Halla.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Not even bigger boobs?”

“Not even bigger boobs.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

He pushed her shoulder and she toppled over, sprawling gracelessly on the bed and he rolled forward so he was on his hands and knees over her. “What do I need to do to make you believe me?”

Halla twisted her mouth to the side in thought before she picked up his hand and placed it over one of her breasts. She squeezed it and made a honking noise before dissolving into laughter.

Michael laughed as Halla giggled so hard her face turn pink. “And that’s just one of the reasons I love you, Halla. You make me laugh like no one else ever has.”

“Awww, that’s sweet. Now touch my titties and tell them you love them, too.” The tip of her tongue peeked out between her lips as she sassed him.

Michael chuckled and bent to her chest. He lightly kissed her left nipple before flicking his tongue out to lick it. “I love you.” He looked up at Halla. “I think I should name them.”

“You want to name my breasts?” He kissed her breast before sucking it into his mouth. Halla gripped the back of his head and arched upward, into the damp heat of his mouth. Michael slowly released the tender flesh, tugging her nipple with his lips before letting it go. “That way they know when I’m talking to them.” He rubbed his stubbled chin over the tip of her breast as he thought. “I think I’m going to name this one Aphrodite.” He kissed it again, suckling at the berried peak.

“You’re naming it after the goddess of love?”

“And beauty. And this one,” he kissed her other breast and swirled his tongue around the stiffening nipple, “I’m going to call Athena, after the goddess of intelligence. So no more insulting them,” he closed his hands over them as he looked up at her, his chin resting on her sternum, “because they represent two of the things I love about you. Your amazing intellect and your beauty that leaves me breathless.”

He wasn’t the only one who was breathless. Halla’s lungs emptied on a shuddering sigh, robbed of the ability to function normally by the way he was looking at her and the touch of his hands gently massaging her breasts. She traced a finger down the bridge of his nose. “I love you, Michael. You make me feel beautiful.”

“Good.” He pressed a kiss to Aphrodite and then to Athena, and then grinned wolfishly up at her as his hands slid down her sides to her sparkly knickers. “I think it’s time for these to come off so we can have fun now, what do you think?”

“I agree.”

He nuzzled against the apex of her thighs and inhaled before he stripped them down her legs. “Now,” he said as he grabbed her waist, “if you were six foot two could I do this?” He picked her up and flipped her over and then pulled her back and up, bringing her bum right up against his hips. Halla squealed in surprise from the sudden movement and then groaned into the sheets as his hand left her waist to cup her pussy.  He slid one finger inside her and rubbed and then a second, his hand forming an I love you sign on her bum as he stroked slowly in and out, watching Halla squirm under his touch. His other hand stroked up and down her spine, pressing just a bit against the dip of her back to arch her more, shifting her so he could better watch his fingers slipping out of her pink heat. His thumb slipped down to slide over her clit and she moaned again, her fingers digging into the sheets.

His fingers stroked over and over, glistening with her wetness, following the directions given by her body’s movements as to speed and pressure. She gasped out his name, her cheek pressed against the sheet as her fingers scratch at the cotton weave. “You like this, baby?” He pressed harder on her clit, tiny circles orbiting the small nub of nerves.

She swore instead of answering and he grinned and rubbed faster. Her hips rocked backwards, impaling herself on his fingers. He yanked out his fingers and pressed in his cock, rock hard just from watching her response. Halla cried out as she pushed back against him, sinking herself onto his cock. She never got used to the feel of his claiming her, over how much her body stretched to be able to take him inside her. His hands closed over her hips and held her in place as he began to pump into her. Halla whimpered, already so close to coming that every centimeter’s slide of skin on skin was sweet ecstasy.

“Michael, I’m gonna come,” she managed to say, the words being torn apart by the noises she was making, unable to stay silent against the power of his body.

“No, baby, not yet. Wait for me.”

The fuse was already burning though, and she knew she couldn’t wait much longer. “Michael, I can’t.”

“Please, baby.” His nails scored her pale skin as he held her steady against the increasing pace of his thrusts. “Just hold it. Hold on for me.”

She dug her nails into her palms, hoping the pain would distract her from the liquid heat burning white hot between her thighs. “Michael,” she cried out, dragging out the last half of his name, pleading with him to get there faster. The muscles in her thighs trembled and her stomach was turning to solid steel in anticipation.

“Just a little bit more,” he grunted out between each thrust.

Halla squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to hear the sound of his body slapping against hers or the wet suction of her pussy around his cock. It just intensified the feeling of her body drawing taut, her nerves fraying like an old rope.

“Now, baby,” he howled. “Now!”

Halla cried out as the wave of heat crashed over her, leaving her glowing and trembling, drowning in a scorching sea of light. The second wave held her under, and Michael cried out as he came inside her, plummeting into the depths with her. They floated there for what felt like forever, until Halla eventually slumped on the bed. Michael laid down on top of her and kissed her on the cheek.

“See? I can be your blanket.”

Halla’s laugh was muffled by the mattress. “You’re a very heavy blanket.”

He rolled off of her and she took a noisy breath. “Thanks.”

Michael stood up and grabbed Halla, throwing her over his shoulder and heading for the bathroom. “Now,” he said as he turned on the water, “I’m going to show you why being short is a good thing in the shower.”


	29. 28 May 2015

Halla scanned the departure boards as she walked through the airport, looking for clues as to where Michael was taking her. After the insanity of the last week with her graduation and his family flying in and her extended family all being there for a huge party and Mum’s side of the family gossiping about everyone, the idea of a week-long holiday with just her and Michael sounded heavenly. The only problem was she had no idea where they were going.

“You packed more for me than just knickers, right?” she asked, as she read the signs for the concourse in an attempt to identify which airlines were down this way.

“Yes, baby.”

At least she could hear him now. He’d made her wear ear-plugs through check-in and security so she wouldn’t be able to hear if anyone mentioned where they were going.  She’d tried to take her boarding pass from the security agent but he’d snatched it out of her hands before she got a good look at it. All she knew was that he’d been shopping for her, and that he had her passport but he hadn’t asked her if her vaccinations were up to date. Her hope of finding out as soon as they got to the gate was squashed as he ushered her into the VIP lounge. At least she got a Cherry Coke while she waited. It even had a real cherry in it. Finally, he took her by the hand and walked her to the gate. “Reykjavík?” She stopped in her tracks as she read the destination scroll. “You’re taking me to Iceland?”

“I’ve never been and I know how important your heritage is to you, so I want you to show me. And you haven’t been back in years. I don’t want you forgetting where you came from.”

“I don’t think you could have picked a more perfect place for our first real holiday together.”

“I know it’s not prime Northern Lights time, but I figured stealing you away for a week right before you defended your dissertation probably would have been a bad idea.”

“Yes. And of course you were filming.”

His shark grin was in full display. “Well, you know, that too.”

He showed their boarding passes to the attendant and they were ushered into first class seating. Halla bounced excitedly in her seat. “I’ve never been in first class before,” she whispered to him dramatically. She got even more excited when she found out that they had grenadine to make her a cherry Coke and she didn’t even have to wait until the flight took off to get it. She took out her book but as soon as they had gained cruising altitude, she promptly curled up and fell asleep. Michael tucked her book back into her bag and covered her with a blanket, trying not to laugh as she snored softly. She’d barely slept at all the last few days with all the convocations and the hooding and celebrations with peers and friends and family about and she was fighting her spring allergies that left her congested and sneezy. They hadn’t been together last spring, so he had learned over the last month that she was allergic to basically all reproducing plants. Every time she walked outside, regardless of the weather, she sneezed like a kitten that’d gotten a face full of sunshine, and Michael had to keep himself from laughing hysterically every time at the ridiculous noise. He had remembered to pack an extra bottle of her allergy medicine. As funny as it sounded, he didn’t want her sneezing through the whole trip.

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After spending a few days in Reykjavik, they rented a motorcycle and went exploring on their own with no schedule other than a hotel room reservation in a different city that night. For Halla it was a homecoming. The landscape was craggy and green and sent up periodic wafts of steam. Everything smelled just the way she remembered and she pointed out different landmarks as they travelled. They’d explored old medieval sites that were being excavated, petted the shaggy Icelandic horses, and tried climbing old rock cairns. Michael had wanted to stop and prod every hot spring and geyser, fascinated by all the volcanic activity. They’d stopped at a little restaurant at a crossroads and had a traditional Icelandic meal and as the sky had darkened, they’d checked into their hotel.

Halla threw herself down on the bed in the cabin they’d been assigned. Michael had done his research and found the perfect spot for their night’s rest. Each cabin was secluded from the other, scattered around a landscape dotted with trees and sloping hills. The roof was glass, allowing an unimpeded view of the stars overhead. Halla hoped that tonight they would see the northern lights. Michael dumped the saddlebags from the bike on the floor. “Go get in the hot tub, honey. I’ll join you as soon as food gets here.”

Her tired body perked up. “There’s a hot tub?”

“Just outside. Each cabin has their own. It’s all fed by one of the local hot springs, so make sure you check the temperature.”

Halla just laughed at the warning. She’d had to yank him back from sticking his hand in the first hot spring they’d stopped to explore. Growing up in Iceland, every child was taught how to be safe around the ever-changing pools of hot water. They could fluctuate dramatically, and what was safe one day was deadly the next day. Halla rolled off the bed and landed gently on her hands and knees before she crawled over to the saddle bags and began rifling through it, looking for her bikini.

“You don’t have to wear anything. It’s protected enough.”

She lifted the pale pink ruffled top out of the bag triumphantly. “But you bought me a pink bikini! I have to wear it.”

“Alright. I’m going commando, though.”

She giggled and started peeling off her clothes. “Of course you are.”

Halla was staring up at the stars, letting the hot water soak away the soreness of muscles unaccustomed to spending all day on a motorcycle, when Michael walked out onto the dark stone surrounding the hot tub, carrying a large snack for the two of them. She snitched one of the grapes and dipped it into the whipped cream. “Hey, remember when I used to be the one carrying around your food?” 

Michael set the tray down on the side of the hot tub before stepping down into the hot water. “I don’t remember you ever bringing it to me in the bath though.”

“This is true.” She peered at the food on the tray. “Did you get any hákarl?”

Michael made an overly loud retching sound. “God no. Once was enough. I can’t believe you let me put that in my mouth.”

Halla giggled. “It’s an Icelandic delicacy. You needed to experience it.”

“It’s rotten shark. I think I could have missed out and been fine.”

“Well, of course it’s rotten. It’s poisonous if it’s fresh.”

Michael shook his head at her matter of fact attitude. “I want to know how drunk the first Icelander was who said, ‘Hey, this shark has been rotting here for four months. I think I’ll have it for dinner.’ That’s some hardcore drunk.”

“You never let it rot more than three months.”

“That makes it so much better.” He picked up one of the strawberries off the plate and popped it into her mouth.

“I don’t like corned beef,” she mumbled around the fruit.

Michael pulled the plate away. “That’s it. You don’t get any more food.”

Halla stuck out her bottom lip and gave Michael puppy-dog eyes. He managed to hold out almost three seconds before he gave in. He beckoned to her with one finger and she scooted across the seat until she was next to him.

“You’re not going to sit on my lap?”

“I’m still waiting for my thighs to stop vibrating from the ride and you’re not wearing shorts and if I sit on your lap now I’ll get distracted from the food.”

They worked their way through the platter of fruits and breads and cheeses. When the food was gone, she climbed onto his lap. “Are your fingers pruney yet?”

He held up his hand and she examined his hand in the light dimly illuminating them from the door into the cabin. His fingers were still smooth. “I guess that means we don’t have to get out yet.”

“Good. I was just getting comfortable.” He cupped her bum and pulled her closer. He had followed through on his statement that he was not going to wear shorts, and all that separated them now was her teeny pink bikini. He hadn’t been able to keep himself from buying it when he saw it. Pale pink with ruffles across the top and a bottom that tied on either side, it practically screamed Halla. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood in the store staring at it, imagining a scenario like the one currently playing out, before he’d taken it off the rack and added it to the other clothes he was buying her. He’d bought her everything she would need for the trip, telling her it was to keep their destination a surprise, but partly to add some variety to her wardrobe. She lived in the same few pairs of jeans and he was half convinced she stole his shirts not because they reminded her of him, but because she got tired of her own. The only thing he hadn’t purchased for her had been shoes and that’s because her feet were so little that would have required going in the girls’ section, and that made him feel weird. The one exception had been her motorcycle boots. He wanted her protected in case they got hit. Luckily he could go to a motorcycle shop to get those along with the rest of her riding leathers.

He tugged gently on one of the ties of the bikini bottom, testing how much she was going to make him work for it. She got a kick out of making him beg sometimes, she had confessed once, because normally the elastic in her knickers gave out when he walked in the room and it made her feel like she had some measure of self-control. When she didn’t respond, his eyes travelled upwards from where they had been focused on the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest to her face. Her head was tilted back and she was staring raptly at the stars overhead. He looked up and saw the aurora borealis. It had made its debut appearance for her on this trip. They’d spent last night huddled together on a patio, wrapped in all the blankets from their bed and drinking hot chocolate and eating biscuits in a vigil for the lights, but she’d ended up falling asleep before they appeared. Tonight though, the eerie green lights shimmered overhead in bands of light. Michael alternated between watching the lights and watching Halla watch the lights. After about twenty minutes, the lights faded away and she finally looked at him again.

“I’m sorry. I totally ignored you.”

He smiled at her and brushed wet fingers against her cheek, trying to shoo away the blush that was pinking her skin. “I knew you’d come back to me when you’d seen your fill.”

“One of my first memories is of seeing the lights. They fascinated me. I was convinced it was a message from angels but I could never figure out what they were saying.”

“And now that you know it’s not angels?”

She laughed as she looked back up at the sky, as fascinated by the crystalline view of the stars as by the aurora earlier. “Now that I know it’s the result of atmospheric gases ionized by coronal mass ejections?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, what you said.”

She looked at him again and shrugged bonelessly. “I don’t know. I think that the universe creating unintentional beauty as a byproduct of its mortality is an amazing message.”

Michael’s breath caught in his chest, almost painfully. “I don’t know anyone who sees the world like you, Halla.”

“I’m a little bit weird.”

“You’re a lot bit amazing.”

She leaned forward the few inches that separated them and kissed him. “I think you’re pretty amazing, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you put up with my extended family for a whole weekend without punching anyone or giving the aunties something else to gossip about, and you planned this absolutely wonderful holiday for us and you didn’t break up with me for making you eat hákarl.”

He gagged again. “It smelled like piss.”

“Yeah. It’s an acquired taste.”

It was his turn to close the few inches of distance and kiss her. Her fingers stroked over his back, following the ripple of his muscles as he unhooked her top and set it aside. His tongue darted out to flick against her bottom lip. “You know what I’ve acquired a taste for?”

Her breath came out as steam. “What?”

“You.”

Her teeth caught at her bottom lip for a second. “You like the way I taste?”

“I do.” He stood up, taking her with him. “And I think I’m going to have a taste right now.” He stepped up on the edge of the hot tub and carried her dripping into their cabin. Halla pulled the ties loose on the bottom of her swimsuit and pulled it out from between them and tossed it out the door before Michael shut it. She’d have to remember to fish it out of the hot tub before they left tomorrow.


	30. 14 June 2015

Halla sat on the kerb, watching Michael slowly driving his motorcycle up and down the street, her niece sitting behind him. Her nephews sat next to her waiting for their turns, kicking each other when they thought she wasn’t looking. They’d all had a go at it already, but were positive they could convince Uncle Michael to take them on another loop again, and this time go even faster. Michael slowed to a halt in front of them and helped Erlin climb off the back.

Halla helped her unbuckle the helmet and pull it off. “What did you think, sweetie?”

“That was so much fun!” She turned around and flung herself at Michael. Her arms closed around his waist and Michael put a hand on the little head of white blonde hair. “Thank you, Frændi.” She let go and whirled around, her hair flying out bouncing around her as she skipped back into the house.

“Can we have another ride?” Gídeon asked.

Michael glanced at Halla and then back at the boys. “I don’t know. I seem to remember you promising your dad that you’d go finish your homework as soon as your ride was over.”

“Come on, just one more ride? A short one?” Hugó pleaded.

He shook his head. “Nope. A promise is a promise. Besides, I have to take your Auntie Halla home so she can finish her homework.”

The boys both looked at her in surprise. Hugó’s nose wrinkled like she smelled bad. “You have homework?”

“Yep. I have a big presentation in a few weeks and I am not done with all the maths for it yet.”

He mad loud vomiting noises while clutching his throat. “I hate maths.”

“Some people do. You’ll find what you love. Just keep trying new things. But for now you have to do your maths.”

The boys stopped scuffing their feet in the channel and reluctantly stood up, slouching towards the house with all the disaffectedness that a couple of pre-teens could manage. She watched to make sure they got in the house and didn’t jump the fence into a neighbor’s garden instead.. Sören waved from the door and she waved back before she climbed on the motorcycle and fastened her helmet, adjusting the straps so it fit her again instead of Erlin. She slid her hands under Michael’s shirt and rested her hands on his stomach as he drove home.

That night, Michael rested against the headboard as he watched Halla get ready for bed. He had a book open on his lap but his thoughts kept drifting to their time that afternoon playing with Halla’s niece and nephews and how much fun it had been. Since Christmas, the thought of having a child with Halla had been sitting quietly in the back of his mind, and he took it out and examined it every once in a while, watching as the image became more and more distinct of him and Halla and a child of their own. “How long is your post-doc?”

“What?” She turned off the water and looked at him in the mirror, her face covered in little bubbles.

“Your post-doc. How long is it for?”

“Three years.” She turned the water back on and rinsed her face. When she had dried it off, she leaned in the bathroom door. “Why?”

“I think we ought to move in together.”

Halla looked around the bedroom at her clothes scattered on the floor and then back into the en-suite where eight different bottles of nail polish sat next to her toothbrush before grinning at him. “I’m fairly sure we already have.”

“No. I mean finding a place in the middle somewhere so we’re together every night. I don’t want three more years of you having a little place in Cambridge and me kicking around this place by myself when you’re staying there.”

She scraped her teeth over her top lip. “Excuse me, I’ll return in a minute.” She stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

Michael chuckled and picked his book back up. She’d come out when she was ready to talk. He’d only gotten a few pages read when the door opened again. He looked up and she was standing very stiffly in the doorway, her fingers twisting together as she looked at him.

“So, you own this place outright, correct?”

He shut the book, marking his place with his finger. He wasn’t sure how many parts this conversation was going to have before she finally left the bathroom entirely. He might get some more reading time soon. “Yes.”

“So you would have to sell it.”

“Right.”

She stared at the ceiling and Michael looked up, wondering if there really was something fascinating up there, before he heard the distinctive pattern of her calming breathing routine. “And you would want to buy a place wherever we end up.”

“That’s my initial thought, but I’d be open to leasing or renting if you’re more comfortable with that.”

She nodded and stared at the ceiling a while longer. Finally, her eyes lowered so she was looking at him. “So. You are rich and I am not and I don’t think I can afford the kind of house or flat you would want.” She continued to knot her fingers together, twisting them with enough force he was surprised she wasn’t cracking her knuckles.

“That doesn’t bother me. The money thing has never bothered me.”

“It’s always bothered me, though. I want to feel like I’m putting a roof over my head in some other manner than sex. And I know you’re not like Gary and what we have isn’t like what was happening there, but I need to feel that I’m contributing to my room and board.”

Michael rubbed his cheek as another piece of the puzzle that was Halla fell into place. “Is this why you always insist on paying the delivery guy whenever you’re the one to place the order?”

Halla nodded. “Maybe someday I’ll get past this, but right now, for me, I need to at least help pay my own way.”

“Well, why don’t we do it percentages then?”

“What’s that?”

“You figure out how much you’ll make as a post-doc every year, I’ll figure out what I made last year, and then we take whatever your percent of my earnings is, and you put that percent towards the mortgage.”

He watched her mouth twist as she thought about it, a familiar expression from watching her working. “You’re not going to want to buy right out again?”

“If we buy right out, then you can split the utilities with me and you’ll do the shopping for food while I cut the grass or something. We’ll work it out so you feel like it’s our house and we’re living together, not you living with me.”

She leaned against the door frame, her mouth twisted to the side as she thought. This time, there was a bit of a smile threaded into the twist as well.

“Can we find a place that has one of those big fancy tubs with the jets in it and stuff?”

“Yes.”

Michael watched as her bum began to wiggle. He knew what that meant and tossed his book aside as she took a few running steps and then flung herself into the air, landing on the bed like the worst stunt person ever.

She oofed and laid stunned for a second before she scrambled the rest of the way up the bed and leaned her head on his chest. “Okay. Let’s move in together.”

“I think we should get a big trampoline for the back garden.”

Halla tilted her head back so she could see Michael’s face and stuck out her bottom lip in the most pitiful expression she could manage. “Does that mean no more bouncing on the bed?”

He tipped her head further back and kissed her until she was flat on her back with him leaning over her. “You can bounce on the bed whenever you want, baby.” He kissed her again and his hand slid up under her shirt, closing over her breast. “I was thinking you could get your bouncy out on the trampoline until you’re calm enough to lay on it with me and teach me the stars overhead.”

Halla’s eyes sagged closed as his fingers stroked over her nipple. “That sounds really nice. And we could watch the meteor showers on it.”

His hand stilled on her breast and he kissed her softly. “And maybe, when we’re both ready, I could get you pregnant on it, out under the stars.”

Her eyes flew open at the word pregnant and she saw him smiling down at her, a gentle hesitance in his eyes that she had never seen before. She waited for the wave of panic to wash over her but it never came. Instead there was a deep sense of happiness. Halla nodded slowly and then smiled. “I think I would like that.”


	31. 25 June 2015

The room was dark, the only light coming in from the partially opened curtains as he felt Halla pat his back. Michael made a muffled sound of questioning as he rolled over, wondering why Halla was waking him up in the middle of the night. Her hand smacked against his shoulder and he fully opened his eyes. She was tangled up in the bed sheet and struggling to get loose. He reached over to help unwrap the sheet she’d somehow managed to knot around herself and she began to scream. “Let me go let me go let me go!”

Michael yanked back his hand and slapped on the bedside lamp. Her arms and legs were thrashing violently and he grabbed her shoulder to shake her awake, only to be met with more screams of terror. He shouted her name, and then did it again. She stopped flailing and screaming, lying perfectly still as she stared at the ceiling for several seconds with blank unfocused eyes.  As soon as awareness returned to her eyes she scrabbled the sheet from her and fled the room.

Giving small thanks that she hadn’t headed for the shower, he kicked off the rest of the blankets and followed after her. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs when he didn’t see her. In the quiet, he heard her in the downstairs lounge. She never went downstairs – that’s where he kept the alcohol – but that’s where he found her, curled up in the furthest corner of the house, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobbing. She was rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around her knees, completely non-responsive to his voice. Veins like blue chalk were visible under her pale skin, arms and legs completely bare. He crouched in front of her. “Baby, what do I do?” She didn’t even say anything. He hadn’t expected her to.

“I’ll be right back.” He ran up the stairs two at a time and grabbed the blanket off of the back of the sofa and barely touched the stairs on his way back down. “Halla, here’s a blanket, baby. Do you want a blanket?” She grabbed it like a wild animal not sure if the offered treat was a trap, and then shrank back again, wrapping the blanket around herself so the only part of her visible was her face. He backed up a few steps and then sank to the ground. “I’m going to be here. I’m just going to sit here. I’m not going to come any closer.”

It took twenty minutes before she could look at him. He held his hand out to her and she shook her head so he put it back down. He went upstairs to the kitchen and came back with a big glass of water. He put it down next to her and sat back down and waited. After a minute her hand snuck out from under the blanket and she picked up the glass. She clutched it in front of her with both hands, her hands still trembling enough that the water sloshed as she sipped. Slowly she stopped shaking.  

Finally she whispered, “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

He stood and reached out his hands to help her to her feet but she shook her head and stood up by herself. Clutching the blanket around her, she slowly climbed both flights of stairs. When she got to the door to the guest room she stopped. She looked back at Michael. “Is it alright?”

He nodded. “You do what you need to do.”

She went into the guest room and shut the door behind her and he winced as he heard the lock click into place. He rested his forehead against the wall for a few moments before he went downstairs and turned off the water heater. When he finally went back to bed it felt emptier than the nights when she was in Cambridge.

In the morning, after a very cold reminder that he’d turned off the hot water in the middle of the night, he was eating breakfast when Halla came down the stairs. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen and watched him for a second. He didn’t move. She was in loose jeans and chucks and an X-Men hoodie zipped up to her chin with the hood pulled up covering her hair. If it hadn’t been for her delicate face, she could have been mistaken for a teenage boy. She grabbed a granola bar out of the cupboard and shoved it in her pocket before she plucked a banana from the bunch on the counter.

“I’m going back up to school,” she said as she very carefully peeled the banana, her eyes focused intently on the fruit. “I’m not running. I just need some space.” She snorted. “Outer space. My space. Just some space.”

“Do you want me to drive you?”

“No.” She put the peel in the bin and then walked the final few steps across the kitchen to him and patted his shoulder hesitantly. “I’ll call you later.”

Michael repeated to himself the now familiar mantra, “Respect her boundaries,” as she walked out the door.

She texted him a few times that day, mostly pictures of where she was so he knew she wasn’t running away. One was a picture of her cubicle at the observatory, another of the AA sign outside her meeting, and a third of her therapist’s door plate. He was in bed that night just about to turn off the light to go to sleep when he heard the creaky stair groan. “Halla?”

The bedroom door opened and she stood there, dressed the same way she had been that morning, her hair still concealed by the hood. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

She came into the bedroom and rifled through her dresser drawers and went into the bathroom with no further words. When she came back out, she’d swapped her jeans for sweatpants, the toes of her Wonder Woman socks peeking out from underneath. She climbed onto the bed and curled up, her back against him. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

He leaned over and kissed the top of her hoodie-covered hair. “I’ll always be right here.” He pulled the blanket up over her and turned off the light.

The room was dark, the only light coming in from the partially opened curtains as he felt Halla pat his back. Michael made a muffled sound of questioning as he rolled over, wondering why Halla was waking him up in the middle of the night. She waited until he was on his back to snuggle into his side and drape her arm over his stomach. Resting her head on his chest, she went back to sleep. Michael tugged the hood back far enough to kiss her hair and then pulled it back into place before he fell asleep again, his arm wrapped securely around his most important heart.


	32. 2 July 2015

Michael stumbled over a crack in the pavement as he dug in his pocket for the car keys. He stopped walking to concentrate and then triumphantly pulled out the keys and waved them about before he held them out to Halla. “You’re going to have to drive, baby.”

Halla crossed her arms over her chest. She was already angry and this was not helping. “I’m not driving.”

“Why not?”

Halla stared at Michael for a few seconds, wondering if he was serious. He just wagged his head at her to silently ask the question again.

She closed her eyes in exasperation. The last three hours had left her holding on to her last nerve by her fingernails and the ugly streetlamps caused enough light pollution she couldn’t even see the stars to calm down. She took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then slowly blew it out. “Think, Michael. In the almost year we’ve been together, have you  _ever_  seen me drive?”

Michael scratched his face as he thought. “No.” He scratched his chin again. “Why don’t you drive?”

“If you think about it really hard, I’m pretty sure you can figure that out.”

He could see him trying to figure it out but his booze soaked brain wasn’t firing on all neurons. She tugged on her necklace and saw the light turn on in his eyes. “Oh, right. Patrek.”

“Yeah, Patrek.”

He dismissed her concern with a broad wave of his arm. “You’re sober this time, though. You’ll be fine.”

He reached out to pat her reassuringly and she stepped back, causing him to sway when his hand didn’t meet the expected resistance. “They took away my license, you dumb git.”

“So don’t speed.”

Halla scrubbed her hands against her forehead. “Michael, let’s just call a cab. I’m not going to risk anything happening now, not with everything going so good.”

Michael threw himself over the bonnet of his car. “I can’t leave my baby here. Something might happen to her.”

Halla was half tempted to just let him sleep it off there on his car. “Your baby,” she said, enunciating each syllable with extreme care.

“I love my car, Halla. This was my first big reward for myself.”

She pulled her cardigan tighter around her and took a few steps towards the street. “Well, this baby is going to catch a cab. Are you coming?”

“No, I’m driving baby home where no one can key her.” He ran his hand tenderly over the sleek curves of his pristine auto.

“You are not driving.”

He tried to stand up, swayed and grabbed the car for balance, and then made it to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s not that far.” Halla reached for the keys but he held them high overhead. “One more advantage to you being short.”

“You’re the biggest bell end when you’re this pissing drunk, you know that?”

“You’re the one who won’t drive me.”

She stomped one foot and grabbed his belt. “Yeah, I won’t. Because it’s illegal. Now come get a cab with me.” She tried pulling him away from the car but he somehow managed to stand firm.

“No.” Michael started fumbling the key into the lock of the door but was having a hard time keeping his hand steady.

“Michael, give me the keys.”

“No.” Again he tried, but couldn’t figure out which key to use.

“Give me the keys, Michael. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. He tried a different key.

“God damnit, you can’t even get your fucking key in the lock. How do you think you’re going to drive?”

“Roads aren’t as small as locks, Halla. Not all of us have your problem holding their liquor.”

Halla’s eyes went wide and then her face went red. She turned around and stomped back into the pub they had just exited. Less than a minute later she came back out with a steak knife. She marched over to the car and stabbed the rear tire.

The sudden pop and hiss of releasing air caught Michael’s attention. “You stabbed my car!”

“I’m keeping you from driving and hurting yourself or someone else.” She darted around the back of the car and slashed the other rear tire.

“Damnit, Halla! Stop stabbing my car.”

She reached forward and stabbed the third tire and then let the knife fall to the ground. “I’m getting a cab. You can walk.” She stepped out to the street and raised a hand and a cab immediately stopped for her.  She climbed in and slammed the door shut as Michael called out her name again.

Michael finally got home three hours later after getting his car towed to a repair shop. He slammed the front door and bellowed Halla’s name. There was no answer. Swearing, he climbed the stairs. She wasn’t in their bedroom so he checked the guest room. The door was locked. “Halla, I know you’re in there.”

“You’re very smart. Go to bed.”

He pounded on the door. “Come out here and talk to me.”

“No. Go to bed.”

“I’m not leaving until you come out here.”

“Well then, you should probably lay down and take a nap in the hall then, because I’m not coming out there until morning.”

Michael growled deep in his throat. Why was she being so stubborn? “I could have you arrested for vandalism, you know that?”

“Better that than you ending up in a wheelchair or dead.”

He threw up his arms and stomped around in the hall way, trying to keep from swearing at her anymore. “I wasn’t going to get hurt.” Each word came out like a separate sentence.

A line of light bled from under the door as she turned on a light and then there was a long silence. The line broke into pieces as her feet blocked the glow and then he heard the sound of her head resting against the door. “Nobody ever thinks they’re going to be the one. I couldn’t let you do that. I love you too much. I can’t let someone else I love get hurt when I could have stopped it.”

God, she was crying. He’d made her cry. “Please come out here,” he said quietly.

“I can’t. Your ‘just gonna drop in and say hi to some mates’ turned into eight pints, Michael. You made me sit there through eight fucking pints and I can smell the alcohol on you with the door closed.”

“You can smell me?”

“You stink of it.”

Michael let his head sag forward and thud against the closed door. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning. Go to bed.”

He sighed and his eyes sagged closed. He knew she was right and he should leave her alone. She deserved that much respect from him after the way he’d taunted her earlier. “Alright. Just one thing…”

“What?”

There was a long pause. “Do you wanna build a snowman?”

Halla couldn’t prevent the burble of laughter that escaped. “Go to bed, Michael.”

At least he’d stopped her from crying. Fixing everything else would be for tomorrow. “Okay, bye.”


	33. 3 July 2015

Halla paced the living room, waiting for Michael to come down stairs. The shower had turned off a few minutes ago. He’d been in there long enough where he’d probably run out of hot water. She’d been up for hours already and had set up everything she needed for the discussion they were going to have, whether Michael wanted to have it or not. She loved him, but she could not handle another night like last night. He finally came down the stairs, dressed only in a pair of boxer briefs. She shook her head. This was not getting off to a good start.

He yawned and stretched. “Hey baby, why you all dressed up?”

Halla picked up the neatly folded shirt and jeans she had brought downstairs in case of necessity and smacked them against his chest. “Put these on.”

Michael grabbed the clothes and smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. His eyes slowly narrowed. “Judging by the look on your face, I’m thinking you slashing my tires wasn’t just a dream.”

“It was not.”

He ran a hand over his still damp hair. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

“Put the clothes on.”

Michael pulled on the t-shirt and jeans, and Halla pointed to the sofa. “Sit.” He sheepishly sat and Halla pointed to the coffee table. “Coffee, black, no sugar. Water. A banana. B multi-vitamin. Whole grain toast with jam. Paracetamol. Feel free to partake while you listen.”

Michael reached for the paracetamol and the water.

“You notice I am all dressed up in what you call my ‘sexy professor’ outfit.” He made a noise of approval and she shushed him. “You don’t get to talk right now. You get to listen. I am in my sexy professor outfit.” She pulled up the hem of the skirt. “I am wearing stockings and suspenders, as you can see. I am also wearing very tiny knickers, which you do not get to see.”  Michael’s head tilted to the side as his eyes slid up her leg from the black high heels, over the sheer black stockings, the wide lace top, and then the thin rose colored ribbon disappearing up under her skirt. She twitched the hem of her skirt down and picked up a heavy, burgundy bound volume from the table she had set up as her make-shift podium. She dropped it on the coffee table and it landed with a loud thud, causing his coffee to slosh. “That is my dissertation. It’s brilliant, according to my committee. I’m a fucking genius, Michael.”

Michael nodded, wondering where this was going.

“So, now that I’ve invoked both Athena and Aphrodite, and given you a reminder of what you love about me, let’s get started with our main presentation.” She pushed a button on her laptop and the screen of the television lit up. It read, “How to Keep Dr. Halla Jónsdóttir from Walking Out the Door.”

Michael sat bolt upright as his head snapped from the television back to her face. “You’re leaving me?”

“That’s up to you. This time it won’t be running away. This time it will be walking away. I love you Michael, but I can’t put up with another night like last night.”

“I know I got drunk, but baby,” he started.

She didn’t want him to get started so he interrupted. “No. Shut it. You didn’t just get drunk. You were pissing drunk. Plastered. Embarrassing. You endangered my sobriety and if we’re seriously talking about buying a house together and living together and having a baby, we need to address the question I keep getting asked.” She tapped a button on her laptop and the television image shifted, “Why are you with a guy who drinks so much if you’re trying to stay sober?”

Michael sighed and fought the impulse to roll his eyes. He’d had other people twit him about his drinking. He was actually surprised it had taken Halla this long. “It’s not that bad.”

Halla’s jaw clenched and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Michael, you mocked me last night. You made fun of my height and more importantly, you made fun of my alcoholism.”

Michael’s brow furrowed as he searched through his memories of the night before. “I did not.”

“You did. You turn into an arsehole when you get that drunk and you don’t even remember it.”

He slouched back into the sofa. What in the world had he been thinking to make fun of her? Especially where she was most vulnerable. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. You hurt me, Michael. It hurt that you would keep me in that pub for hours. It hurt that you would drink that much around me when you know that beer is my weakness. It hurt that you made fun of me, that you would think that driving drunk is okay after you know what I did and how much it fucked up my life and my brother’s life.” She pushed a button and a picture popped up on the screen. “This is Patrek, the week before I hit him with my car.” Patrek was standing next to a beautiful woman, his arm around her. She was holding out her hand, flashing a large diamond ring at the camera. “That’s Elizabeth, the girl he was going to marry.” She tapped the button again and another picture popped up, Patrek in a hospital bed, engulfed in casts and wires, the visible parts of his body bruised and swollen. “She broke off the engagement a month after he got out of the hospital.”

Another picture popped up. This one was of Halla. She was handcuffed to the hospital bed, an IV in her bruised arm. Several other bruises were visible on her sallow skin. She was gaunt and her hair looked like dried straw. Her mouth and chin were smeared with black powder. “This is me after the doctors saved me from killing myself because of what I did to Patrek.” She wiped the tears off of her face, leaving smudges of mascara under her eyes that looked too much like the activated charcoal in the photo for Michael’s comfort.

Michael couldn’t take his eyes off of the pictures. All he could think of was him putting Halla in the hospital, being the cause of her looking that close to death. Of her  _being_  that close to death. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“Good.”

“What do I do to fix it, Halla? I don’t want…I can’t deal with the idea of losing you.”

Some of the muscles in her shoulders relaxed a miniscule amount. Her breath was shaky as she continued, relieved to have gotten past the part where she had to convince him there was a problem. “These are my rules.” Another tap of her laptop and the television screen shifted again.  It read, ‘I’m done making my sobriety fit in around your drinking.’ “I want to be the fun girlfriend, but I can’t do all the things you like to do with you. I’m not saying you can’t drink, because you’re not an alcoholic. I’m saying that there are things I’m changing.” She tapped the keyboard and as she talked, rules started popping up on the screen. “I won’t go to pubs. Period. I can’t. If you want to go hang out with your mates, fine. You can go. You will take me home first and you will take a cab. You will never take your car with you if you’re going drinking. Ever. If you do end up drinking somewhere and your car is with you, you will leave it wherever it is. Paintjobs can be fixed a lot easier than broken spines.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

She dug her nails into her palms as she stared at him sternly. “This is a deal breaker for me. Next time I won’t aim for the tires. I will inflict maximum damage on my way out.”

“I understand.”

“Second rule.” Another tap of the keyboard. “If you ever come home drunk enough where brushing your teeth and a shower doesn’t fix the smell, you will sleep apart from me. I’m not going in the guest room anymore. You can.”

He nodded.

“Third rule. When we’re out together, you space out your drinks. Water or juice between each drink with alcohol in it.

Another nod.

“Fourth rule. If I am ever feeling uncomfortable, I have the right to leave. You will not coax me in any way to stay. You will stop whatever you are doing, and you will assist me finding a ride home.”

“Of course.”

“Fifth rule. If you  _ever_ ,” her chin began to tremble and her eyes swam with tears, “ _ever_  get so drunk again that you make fun of me,” her face contorted as she began to sob and Michael launched himself off the couch and over the coffee table. He wrapped her in his arms and held her. She was so delicate and yet so fucking strong and it rocked him to his core to know that he had reduced her to tears.

His chest shook as he cried. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I’ll never do that again. I promise. I promise.”

Halla could barely get out words she was crying so hard. “You’re my safe space, Michael, and you made it not safe for me.”

He took her face in his hands, trying to wipe away the tears with his thumbs but they came too fast. “I’m so sorry. I fucked up, baby. I fucked up so bad, Halla. I swear, never again. I promise.”

She held on to his wrists like he was a life preserver and she was drowning. “It hurt so bad. It still hurts.”

He could feel the tears running through his beard, dripping from his jaw, but he wouldn’t let go of her long enough to wipe them away. “Never again, love. I promise. I’ll never do that to you again.”

“I didn’t want to be the killjoy last night and throw a fit over you hanging out with your friends, but I can’t do that, Michael. I can’t. I poured out all the alcohol in the house last night because I didn’t trust myself to be around it while I was waiting for you to get home. I came so fucking close to drinking again and I _can’t_. I can’t do that, Michael. I love you, but I won’t destroy myself to be around you.”

“You won’t have to. I promise. I’ll follow the rules and if you need to add any more you tell me and I’ll follow those, too. I didn’t realize how bad it was and how much of an arse I was being, and you seemed like everything was fine, and I’m a knob and you should hit me really hard. Really really hard. As hard as you can.”

That got half a smile from her. “I’m not going to hit you. Just,” she sniffed and wiped her face against his shirt, “don’t hurt me anymore, alright?”

He hugged her tight and tucked her head under his chin. “I won’t. I swear to God, Halla. I won’t ever do this again.” She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his chest, and they held each other for long minutes until both of them were calmer. “Good work using your words, by the way.”

She snorted. “It’s easier when I pretend you’re a dumb student who keeps blowing off his studies.”

He grinned and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been PowerPointed at before.”

“Do you want me to print you a copy of it?”

A softer kiss to her forehead. “No. Something this important I’ve memorized already. I swear to God, Halla. I didn’t know I was this bad.”

“Well, now you do.”

He carefully wiped the last remnants of her smeared makeup away from under her eyes. “I know that playing sexy professor and student is a no go right now. How about we do very very very apologetic boyfriend and perfect girlfriend? Have you eaten today?”

She shrugged half-heartedly. “Half a piece of toast.”

“Why don’t I make you breakfast? How do pancakes sound?”

Her mouth twisted to the side as she considered his offer. “Waffles?”

Another kiss to her forehead. “Waffles it is, my dear.”

“I’m going to go change.”

She came back downstairs wearing his old faded Iron Maiden t-shirt over pink floral leggings. He was carefully following the instructions from her cookbook, including the marginalia she had scrawled for how to adjust it for the waffle iron they had. It was just one more thing she’d added to his life, a waffle iron and lessons on how to use it. And now here she was, barefoot, pouring some of the maple syrup directly into her mouth when she thought he wasn’t watching. He was going to get the recipe perfect this time. And not just for the waffles.


	34. 21 July 2015

 

Michael was buzzing, more from the remembered feel of Halla teasing his cock in the back seat of the car on the way home while her mouth had been fascinated with his neck and ear, than from the two drinks he’d had that night. She had danced her way up the front steps and the minute he had unlocked the front door she had made for the stereo to turn on her favorite music. Michael slouched in his new chair, watching Halla shimmy around the living room. “You come over here, girl.”

She continued to dance, her hips making her slip of a black dress sway in time to the music. Her back was completely bare except for the necklace she wore backwards, a large teardrop crystal brushing against the small of her back. “No. I’m not done dancing yet.”

He’d already shed his suit coat and now his hand worked at his belt, slipping the prong from the tongue and then pulling the leather loose as he watched her continue to dance. The short skirt swished around her thighs, giving him glimpses of lace stocking tops. “Come dance for me.”

Halla carefully stepped up onto the coffee table and put a little extra bump and grind into her movements as she raked her fingers through her up do, finding the pins holding the curls in place, and tugging them loose. With a final shake of her head, the curls tumbled down and she ran her hands through her hair with a flourish worthy of a L’Oreal commercial. She smiled at Michael through the hair obscuring half of her face. “I like dancing up here.” She blew him a kiss and he shifted in his chair, trying to release the pressure of his trousers against his growing arousal.

Giving up on the helpfulness of a simple change in position, Michael undid the button on his trousers and slowly pulled down the zip, the metallic rasp cutting through the vocals of the song and drawing Halla’s attention. “If you come dance over here, I have a treat for you.”

Halla’s slowly licked her top lip as she ran her hands through her hair again and then let them skim down her body, cupping her breasts for just long enough to make Michael palm his stiffening cock through his pants. “What kind of treat?”

Michael rubbed his hand over the growing ridge in his boxer briefs at half-tempo, one stroke of his hand for every two gyrations of her hips. “Why don’t you dance your sweet little arse over here and find out?”

Halla giggled and dragged her hands up her thighs, pulling her dress upward as she danced in a slow circle. The diaphanous layers slowly revealed the lace tops of her stockings and then alabaster thighs. “You think I have a sweet little arse, caveman?” She kept pulling up her dress, revealing the bottom curve of her bum to him, and then dropped it back down and laughed, shaking her hips to make the dress fall back down around her thighs.

Michael groaned as the dress dropped into place. He wasn’t sure if it was an after effect of the premiere or she just really liked the way she looked tonight, but she had his complete and undivided attention as she danced on the coffee table with no inhibitions. “Take it off, baby.”

She pouted her painted lips and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so. Not yet. I want to see my treat first.”

Michael fought a smile as he pressed his shoulderblades to the back of the chair and arched up his hips enough to tug down his trousers and boxer-briefs. He settled back down into his chair and smirked as Halla’s dancing faltered for moment as she got distracted by his hardening cock. He wrapped his hand around his cock and slowly stroked it twice. “I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours.”

Halla slowly tugged up her dress, teasing the hem against the juncture of her thighs. “Say please.” She hitched up the side of her dress enough to show Michael the microscopic band of black scalloped lace stretched across her hip.  

He answered her with a growl of frustration. “Please baby, take off your dress.”

Halla slowly pulled her dress the rest of the way off and dropped it to the floor. She hadn’t bothered with a bra tonight, leaving her clad in just miniscule lace knickers, thigh high stockings, and towering stiletto heels.

“Fuck, baby.”

Halla spun around to show him the back view, a tiny triangle that laced up into a little bow at the cleft of her bum. “You like them? I saw them at the store and thought ‘Michael would get an instant stiffie.’”

He nodded slowly as she gave her bum a little shake. “You come over here, baby. I need to untie that bow.”

Halla twirled around one more time and slid her hands up over breasts before she started laughing. “I don’t think I can get down from this table in these heels by myself. So you have to come get me or the heels are coming off.”

“You know how I love you, short stuff.”

Halla kicked off her heels, laughing as Michael had to duck as one went wildly astray, and then hopped off the table. She danced her way over to him, staying just out of his reach until he finally lunged forward, grabbed her and pulled her between his legs as he settled back into his chair. His hands cupped her breasts and then skimmed down her sides, moving around to slide inside her knickers and cup her arse. “This is much better.”

Halla carefully knelt on his thighs and then grabbed the back of the chair to keep her balance as she leaned forward to brush her breasts against his mouth. Michael obliged her less-than-subtle request and licked at the hardening pinkness. She moaned as he licked and sucked first one breast and then the other, kneading her arse with his strong hands until her thighs were trembling.

Halla felt guilty being the only one receiving pleasure so she slid her hand down Michael’s body until she found his cock and wrapped her fingers around it. Michael sank his teeth into her breast as she began to stroke, moaning at the feel of the rippling silken skin under her fingers. She gripped the back of the chair tighter as he began to pump into her hand, causing her perch on his lap to grow unsteady. His hand slid further down inside her knickers and the regular motion of her hand over his cock faltered and then came to a stuttering stop as he slid one of his fingers inside her. Her head fell forward and she rested it on Michael’s as his finger slowly stroked in and out of her. She tried to keep her hand moving on his cock as he caressed her but her entire body jerked as he pressed a second finger in to join the first. “God, Michael, I need your cock.”

Michael lifted his head to see her as he twisted his fingers in her and her eyes rolled back in her head. She didn’t see his mischievous grin as he said, “Now it’s your turn, baby. Say please.”

Halla would do whatever he asked to get what she wanted right now. Nothing in the world seemed more important than getting him inside her. “Please Michael, give me your cock.”

He stroked in and out of her a few more times before he answered, loving the feel of her wet skin on his fingers. “Gladly.”

Halla let go of his cock as he pulled his hand out from inside of her, dragging against the wet skin. She undid the hook on one side of her knickers and then the other side, detaching the tiny band of lace from the front.

“They have hooks?”

“I think it’s so you can wear them under suspenders.”

“I think I have a new favorite in your knickers collection.” His hand settled on her arse again and guided her right over his cock. He pressed up against her and Halla slid her knees out, taking him within her as she settled down onto his lap. His fingers dug into her bum as he pushed upward, and they were done talking about anything as Michael groaned at the feel of her tropical heat surrounding him.

Halla couldn’t touch the ground with her toes so she grabbed the back of the chair again as Michael braced his feet on the floor and began to thrust upwards. She rocked her hips and dug her nails into the leather to keep from coming right then as the head of his cock slid over her g-spot. Michael’s eyes were fixed on her face, watching her eyelids shiver and her mouth part on one husky moan after another. Her hips kept rocking as he watched her and he matched the pace she was setting, letting her grind against him just the way she wanted. One of her hands dropped to his shoulder, gripping his shoulder as the other went to her face, shoving back the damp clinging strands of her hair from her cheeks as her head fell back.

He would have been content to just watch her move, the perfection of her body and face like a work of art, but he wanted her to have more, to have the pleasure she was so close to achieving. Her hand was on her breast now and he could see the pink tip of her nipple between her fingertips. The noises she was making were getting closer to desperation and he slid his hand over from her hip to dip his thumb between them and glide over her pulsing clit.

Her hand skidded over his shirt before she grabbed ahold again. Her body curled forward as he fondled her clit and her entire body instantly concentrated on rubbing against his thumb as he continued to thrust into her body. He whispered to her, words of encouragement as she got closer, words of desire as he moved within her, words of lust as his hand squeezed her arse. Her eyes were squeezed shut and he wasn’t sure if she could even hear him as the muscles in her stomach went taut and trembling under his hand. A few last frantic gasps and then she cried out as her body bowed into a moment of perfect stillness. He grabbed her hip again as she collapsed forward and was egged on towards his own climax by her damp panting breaths against his ear. She braced her hands against the back of the chair to hold herself steady as his relentless thrusting drove her body upwards again. He growled out an obscenity and then bit his own lip as his cock throbbed. His nails scratched over her arse as he shouted in exultation as his nerves went up in lines of flame scorching his entire body. There were a few last urgent drives of his hips and then he collapsed back into his chair and Halla relaxed against him.

He traced the line of the chain across her slick back with a single fingertip, idly stroking back and forth until he heard her yawn. “You tired, baby?”

She sat up and stretched and Michael pressed his hands over her breasts, squeezing them softly. “I take it you aren’t?”

He shook his head. “I’ll never tire of this.”

Halla pulled off her necklace and draped the chain around his neck. “Alright, but next time,” she kissed him softly, “you’re on top.”

 


	35. 1 August 2015

Halla wrapped her arms around Michael’s waist as he fiddled with the room key until the light turned green. “When you asked if I wanted to go out for dinner, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

He pushed open the door and flipped on the light. “Well, you have a lot of bad memories in your life, and I thought maybe I could replace the ones associated with Rotterdam with something a little better.”

Halla awkwardly followed him into the room without letting him go. She giggled as Michael tried to keep his longer stride at a pace she could handle without tipping them both over onto the floor. “You even booked the same hotel room. That’s sweet.”

Michael let go of the rolling suitcase he was dragging and turned around and picked up the woman he’d been dragging as well. “You’re not sleeping in the other room this time, though.” He kissed her once before he set her back on her feet.

Halla looked at the closed door into the room she had used a year and a half ago. Her back itched. “I don’t even want to go in that room. It feels tainted somehow.” She turned away and saw a tray of biscuits on the table. With a rapturous smile at Michael she dove for them, took the cover off, and picked up one. “Three dozen biscuits is so much more romantic than three dozen roses.” She inhaled the aroma of the soft treat before she took an enormous bite. She had actually thought they were going to go to dinner so she hadn’t snacked all afternoon, and then he had driven her to the airport. Halla was starving. She picked up another biscuit so she had one in each hand.

Michael opened the door to the small refrigerator and swept his hand over the contents. It was entirely full of cans of Cherry Coke. “I had them stock the fridge special for you.”

“If I’d known we were coming,” she mumbled, and then stopped and swallowed so she could enunciate, “I would have had them do something special for you too.” She opened the balcony door and stepped out into the evening air. “Remember what we did out here?”

Michael followed her out onto the balcony and leaned back against the brick wall and watched Halla look out over the city skyline. Twilight was giving way to darkness and a few stars were visible overhead. “Yes, I do.”

Halla turned around and leaned against the railing and grinned at him. “We kissed for the first time out here. And you put your hand up my skirt. Naughty boy.”

Michael grinned at her. “It was hard to resist with you wrapping your leg around my thigh the way you did.”

Halla giggled and covered her face with her hand. “Even back then you had that effect on me.”

Michael took the few steps to cross the balcony to her and pulled her into an embrace. “Do you know what today is?”

“Saturday?”

“The anniversary of the first time I kissed you in London.”

Halla smiled. She had no idea that he had kept track of the dates like that. She only knew the first time they had sex because it had overlapped with finding the anomaly. She playfully traced the faded X-Men logo on his shirt. “Then shouldn’t we be in London?”

“No, I want to kiss you here and fix this memory.”

Halla’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Michael thought the little lines she got on the bridge of her nose were adorable. “Why would you want to fix the memory of our first kiss? You were very good. Just the right amount of tongue.”

Michael smiled and brushed back the strands of her hair that the wind had teased across her face. “Because I got mad at you for making me stop. I didn’t listen to you. I thought I knew better than you did what you needed and I fucked up your sobriety and I fucked up our friendship and I know I can’t erase what happened, but maybe I can make it a bit blurry.” Even though the balcony was the same, everything else was different. She was still glitter and sass, but this time she wasn’t using it to hide her deep unhappiness, and he wasn’t chasing after the hope of something that could keep him stable. Though James had never come out and said it, Michael knew that the reason James had been so eager to get Halla into his life was out of the hope that being around a girl he was attracted to would stop the recent increase in self-destructive behaviors. James had been worried and rightly so after a few incidents during filming  _Days of Future Past_  It scared him how close he had coming to dragging Halla under with him as he sank. _._  Halla had called James her fairy godmother in the past and Michael had laughed, but he hadn’t saved only her; James had saved him as well.

“Gorgeous man of mine, if I had slept with you that night, it would have fucked stuff up. But even if you had never kissed me, my life was a mess. I had given up on myself, and you know, it sucked what happened, but as much of a disaster as that whole experience was, it was what set me on the road to getting better. I ran away, and James called me on my shit, and if I hadn’t run, then he wouldn’t have called me on my shit and I never would have started seriously getting better, not just sober better, but,” she paused and he could hear the tears fighting to get loose. She messed with her hair, twisting it out of her face. “I told you I couldn’t be your whore back then, and you didn’t really understand what I meant by that then. So I’m not mad at you for that. But,” the tears broke free and she twisted her hair again, “you helped me getting better by making it safe enough to completely fall apart. I’m finally getting help. And that’s because we fucked up so much last time.”

Michael wiped away the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. “Is there anything else you want me to beneficially fuck up for you?”

Halla chuckled and wiped her hand across her face. “No, I think all the poison’s been leached. Now I’m just getting better.”

“Is it alright if I kiss you now?”

Halla nodded her head. “Just don’t think you need to fix our past. It worked out exactly how it needed to.”

“Alrighty then.” He turned her around so his back was now to the railing. “I’m going to kiss you and push you up against that brick wall again and kiss you some more, and then I’m going to take you inside and make love to you until you beg me to stop.”

His smile made the effect of gravity on her knickers amplify by at least an hundred fold. One little smile and they were pleading to fall off. “If this is how you celebrate the anniversary of our first kiss, what are you going to do for the anniversary of the first time we made love?”

Michael scratched under his chin for a moment as he thought. “Pretty much the same thing.” He broke out into a grin.

“We going to stay in London for that one?”

Michael slid his hands around her waist and linked them behind her back. Somehow kissing her didn’t seem nearly as important as just holding her. “I don’t know. Do you want to go somewhere special next weekend?”

Halla considered his question. Her mouth twisted to the side and the lines on the bridge of her nose reemerged. He never tired of watching her adorable face. Everything she thought was so transparently projected by her mobile features. “I think I’d rather just stay home with you and snuggle.”

Michael growled and nipped at her bottom lip. She tasted of strawberries and biscuits. “Do I look like the type of guy who stays home and snuggles?”

Halla shook her head. “No, you look like the boy from the bad side of town that you’ll fuck in the backseat of his car but not take home to your momma.” Her eyes sparkled like stars and then she giggled. “But you’re just a big snugglebug.”

Michael’s laughter could probably be heard in London. He wouldn’t tell her that he’d never been a ‘snugglebug’ until he met her. “Oh no, you know my weakness. Now you can foil my plans for world domination.”

“I guess you’ll just have to find something else to keep my mouth busy so I don’t tell anyone that you’re a world class snuggler.”

Michael pressed her back up against the brick wall and lowered his head so his mouth was only a few inches from hers. “I can think of a few things to keep that sweet little mouth of yours occupied.”

Halla’s insides melted into plasma hotter than the surface of the sun at his knowing smirk. The world had completely changed in the year and a half since she had stood here last. He had been right about some of what he had said. She had been partially right as well. But now, they were back where it had started and this time there would be no regrets. This time, she was exactly where she wanted to be.  Halla grabbed the front of Michael’s faded shirt with her glittery nails and pulled him down the final distance to her. “Kiss me, my love. This time I won’t run away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only one more chapter of A Year in the Life left. In the timeline, the next thing that happens is the last chapter of It Ain't Over if you need a refresher.


	36. 13 August 2015

Halla stood on the walk in front of what could be her new house. It was a beautiful sprawling brick number with huge trees in the yard and beds of flowers flanking the entrance. Michael was unlocking the door but she couldn’t get any closer. It was too much, too soon. Michael turned around and saw her standing there, her eyes wide and face drained of any color. “Baby? Is everything alright?”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

Michael walked back to her and took her hand. “Do what?”

“Buy a house. Because then it’s like I live here and you live here and then what if I freak out again and I need my own space and somewhere to go until I calm down? I won’t have my own little place to go to and then I’ll freak out and do something bad.”

Michael wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head. “We can make a room in here your freak out room if you want. I’ll never go in and we’ll put as many locks on the door as you want. And you’ll have your own office in a few weeks. You can go there too and lock the door. And if those don’t work you can always check into a hotel for as long as you need.”

Halla took a ragged breath. “It’s just a big step. Buying a house, that’s like, you know,” she rubbed her hand over her mouth. “I’m going to close my eyes and you’re going to lead me, okay? Don’t let me crash into the door frame. I think if I can just get inside I’ll be fine.”

Michael squatted down in front of her. “Climb on. This way I don’t have to worry about you falling on your face or running into a wall.”

Halla clapped her hands and jumped on Michael’s back, linking her arms loosely around his neck. He grabbed her behind the knees and stood up. “Now close your eyes, sparklepants.”

Halla closed her eyes as instructed. She could feel him walk and then duck as they went through the door. “Can I open them?”

“Go ahead.”

Halla opened her eyes and gasped. “This is beautiful!” Michael hadn’t been kidding when he said it had been recently renovated. The entire ground floor seemed to be covered in dark hardwood floors. The walls were white and as Michael carried her into the lounge, she looked up at the vaulted ceiling to see an abstract silver chandelier. The far wall feature a huge column of stacked slate with a fireplace and hearth flanked by floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the garden. A ridiculously fluffy white rug covered a huge portion of the floor, and sleek black furniture was topped with shiny pink and silver pillows. “Do we get to keep the furnishings? Because if not I’m stealing those pillows on the way out.”

“We can probably make a deal for the furnishings.”

She patted his shoulder. “Let me down.”

Michael squatted and Halla slid down his back and scurried over to the rug. She rubbed her hand over it and moaned. Her sandals were quickly discarded and she stepped carefully onto the rug and curled her toes. “Good, because I think they would notice if I stole this rug.” She flopped down and made a snow angel on the rug. “We’re gonna have so much sex right here.”

Michael flipped a switch and the fire turned on. It was a row of individual small flames, each set in a dish of stones, rather than a traditional fire.

Halla rolled over on her stomach to get a better look. “That’s cool looking.”

Michael had an aching desire to go pin her down to that fluffy rug and fuck her until she couldn’t walk straight, but he thought that might be inappropriate since it wasn’t actually their house. Her bum looked delectable in those leggings though. He needed to move on or he was going to give in to his baser desires. “Do you want to see the rest of the house or is the sex rug enough for you?”

“It’s like a sleek Star Trek sex cave.”

“So no to the rest of the house.” Halla rolled over onto her back and wiggled her hands at Michael and he pulled her up off of the floor. He kissed her hard and then dragged his teeth over her bottom lip. “And yes, we’ll have lots of sex on that rug.”

They walked through the rest of the house together. The kitchen was all marble and stainless steel with a nice eating area built in, there was another lounge that was much more casually decorated, and a small water closet on the ground floor. Halla stared through the column flanked entry into the formal dining room. “You like it?”

She scratched her head as she looked at the eight piece place settings elegantly arranged on the mahogany table. “It’s a formal dining room.” She seemed baffled by its existence.

Michael looked over her shoulder. “Yes.”

“Does this mean we have to get cloth napkins? And learn to fold them in shapes?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Huh.” Halla scratched her head again. “Maybe we’ll just put the pool table in there.” And with that she was off again, opening all the doors and cupboards to see what was inside each nook and cranny. Michael opened the doors out onto the patio and garden. Still barefoot, Halla ran across the cobblestones to the grass. “Oh, we’d have a real garden.”

Michael expected her to flop down on the lush grass like she had the rug but was surprised when she ran and did a cartwheel into a front flip. “Where’d that come from?”

“Five years of gymnastics when I was little.” She ran over to one of the trees and jumped, trying to catch one of the branches. She failed.

“How come I’ve never seen any of this before?”

“We’ve never had a garden before.” Now she was spinning in circles. Maybe that extra cup of coffee and packet of biscuits on the way up wasn’t such a smart idea.

Michael grinned as he watched her explore the entire garden, poking and prodding and twirling her way from end to end. “This may explain why you’re always bouncing on the bed though.”

“I think it was my mom’s way of keeping her sanity. ‘Go outside and jump around until you’re tired.’ You should come out here on the grass and do a cartwheel.”

“I can’t do a cartwheel.”

“What? Come on and try.”

Michael reluctantly walked onto the grass and tried his best to do a cartwheel. Halla tried her hardest not to laugh, leaving her face pink and rigid. “I told you.”

They spent the next twenty minutes with Halla teaching Michael how to do a proper cartwheel. She got the giggles over and over as she corrected his form and grabbed his body and moved it around. “Didn’t you do ballet for three years or something?”

“Hush, woman.”

Halla laughed and made him do it again. His next attempt was recognizable as a cartwheel and she applauded wildly. “So much better!”

“Can we go look upstairs now?”

Halla did a few more cartwheels and then finished off with two cart wheels into a front layout. “Haha!” she yelled as she landed and threw her arms triumphantly into the air.

“Alright, Flippy.”

She bounced her way over to him. “I love this house!”

Michael grinned at her enthusiasm. He’d been antsy all morning trying to get her to move faster so he could show it to her. Since looking at it with the realtor, he’d wanted to see her reaction and it was everything he had hoped for. “I thought you would when I looked at it a few days ago. It seemed like someplace you’d be happy.”

She held her arms up and he squatted enough for her to jump on his back again. He grabbed her knees and she linked her grass stained hands together around his chest. “What about you? Would you be happy here?”

“With you doing cartwheels on the sex rug? Very happy.” He turned around and shut the doors to outside and then headed for the stairs.

“No cartwheels on the sex rug. You’d slip and hurt yourself.”

“Seriously though, I don’t need much. This has a three car garage and room for us and a couple of kids and look in here.” He opened the door to the master bedroom. “Skylight over the bed so you can see the stars.”

“Oh, Michael. It’s like someone built this house just for us.” She slid down his back again and ran over and jumped on the bed and flopped down on her back. “Now we just need the clouds to go away.” She scrambled off the bed. “They can keep that. It’s not very comfortable.” Michael stood in the doorway as she opened all the doors again. Two of the doors led into wardrobes and Michael wondered what she was doing when she walked into one of them and shut the door behind her. A few seconds later there was pounding on the wardrobe door.

Michael scratched at his chin as he crossed the room and opened the door, only to see Halla smiling up at him innocently. “Yes?”

“Well, other than the fact that the house doesn’t seem to contain a passageway to Narnia, it seems pretty perfect.”

Michael looked at the inside of the door. “Apparently it doesn’t have knobs on the inside of the wardrobe doors either.”

Halla looked anywhere other than at him as she held out the other half of the doorknob. “I accidentally broke it.”

He shook his head and sighed dramatically. “Well, that’s it. We have to buy the house now.”

“I’m sorry.”

He grinned and kissed her. “It’s fine. I’ll put it on my list of things to fix.”

“What else is on there?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

Halla blushed and tucked her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll try not to break anything else.”

“Thanks.”

Halla went back to exploring. She flipped the switch on for the fireplace. This one was a more natural looking log fire. Another door led into the bathroom. “Have you seen this bathroom?” she yelled at Michael, and then turned around to see him right behind her. “That would be a yes.”

“You like it?”

“You weren’t kidding about the tub being big enough to swim in, were you?” Halla climbed into the tub and stretched out on the bottom. “I can lay all the way down in here. This is epic.”

Michael smiled in bemusement as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I have never seen anyone shop for a house like you.”

She shrugged and smiled guilelessly. “Well, when you’re little, you get used to checking to see if things are going to fit you.”

“Things like rugs and wardrobes?”

“You know me, three parts cat, one part unicorn, and two parts fairy dust.”

Michael laughed and held out his hands so he could help her out of the tub. Once she was back on her feet, he pulled her into a hug. “This next part is make or break for this house.”

“I already broke the house.”

“You know what I mean.” He tugged her over to a frosted glass door and opened it. “What do you think?”

Halla looked inside at the small wood paneled room. A bench was built into one side. She looked up at Michael. “Is this a steam room?”

“It is. I know you’ve said it helps when you’re having a bad time, but I need to know if it’s going to be safe having one in the house where there’s no one here to make sure you don’t spend too much time in it.”

She hugged him tightly and kissed him. “I’ll be good. I promise.”

Michael took her face in his hands and held her still so he could focus on her. “The first time you hurt yourself, I’ll rip it back to the studs with my bare hands.”

“I won’t hurt myself. I love it.” She kissed him again. “You must have been looking at houses for weeks to find something this perfect.”

“Since we agreed to move in together. Mostly I’ve had a realtor looking with my list of what I wanted, but this is probably the fourteenth house I’ve looked at in person. None of the rest of them felt right, but this one felt like home.”

Halla peeked back into the steam room. She loved the one at her therapist’s so much and the thought she could have a steam whenever she needed it was exhilarating. “I think this is it. This is home.”

“Let me show you the rest of the upstairs.” There were two more bedrooms, one decorated for a girl and one for a boy, a large bathroom, cupboards along one wall, and one more door. “This, I think, would be your office.”

Michael opened the door and Halla reached for the light switch to get a better view. It wasn’t there. She rubbed her hand over the wall and finally took her eyes away from the wooden bookshelves lining one wall to try and find it. It was a foot over her head. She reached up to turn it on. “What’s it doing way up there?”

“I don’t know. Definitely isn’t where you would expect to find it.”

Halla stood motionless in the middle of the room.

Michael waited for a reaction but nothing happened. “Baby? Do you not like it?”

“They’re not where I would expect them to be,” she murmured softly.

“We can have the light switch moved.”

“No.” She looked up at him as if she had forgotten he was there. “The planets. That’s why I’m not finding them. I’m looking in the wrong place.”

Michael shifted mental gears. This wasn’t the first time she had gotten sidetracked by space in the middle of a conversation. “I thought you were looking everywhere.”

“But only in the observable four dimensions.”

Second sentence and he was already lost. That might be a new record for him. “What?”

“We’re used to thinking of four dimensions,” she started scrambling through the desk drawers, “length, width, depth, and time, but we’re pretty sure there’s actually ten that we can prove mathematically.” She slapped down some paper on the desk and grabbed a pen out of the jar on the desktop and started writing as fast as she could. “What if we’re seeing interference from another dimension? We’ve never been able to observe that, but quantum physics, we know they’re there.” She scratched at her forehead and then drew a heavy line through what she had just written down and drew an odd-looking diagram. Michael gently pushed the chair under her and she sat without stopping what she was doing. He watched as she set the first page aside and started drawing on the second. Diagrams and equations spilled from her pen onto page after page. With a smile, he left the room. He was going to call the realtor and put in an offer on the house and then he’d see if he could find a screwdriver and fix the doorknob.

They were home.


End file.
